Kumasi Hive wins 2018 Miss.Africa Digital Prize worth $5,000

Kumasi Hive from Ghana was announced Tuesday as winners of the 2018 Miss.Africa Digital Seed Funding for STEM Programmes Grand Prize while, INTELLECT-Team at Laboratory of Technologies for Smart Systems (CRNS) Tunisia and Eco-Sol Consulting (Full STEM Ahead!) Seychelles will take home the Second category prize of 1,000 USD.

The winners were announced by the Pan-African trust program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Tuesday.

The winner, Kumasi Hive is a multi-space innovation place for rapid prototyping of ideas, budding local innovations, impact start-up support and promoting youth entrepreneurship as a way of addressing critical social economic and developmental challenges.

The Seed Fund is focused in Africa and is now in its fourth year in offering grants to support women and girls in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs. It also aims to launch or expand women’s own initiatives so to increase their digital opportunities in IT-related training, jobs and leadership roles.

“Our winners have one thing in common, their desire and grit to impart digital skills to young African scholars and is inspiring. They have shown potential for partnership and effort to drive educational value, their projects rated high during evaluations,” Ms Kim Gueho, DCA Trust Corporate Trustee and Miss.Africa CO-Evaluation Committee.

Sophia Bekele, Founder & CEO of DotConnectAfrica Group, and the champion behind Miss.Africa Digital Program complimented the winners and said: “Without a sustained collaborative and creative effort, the goals of growing the local skills that are empowered and technology-driven, we will not simply achieve the sustainable development that is required to power Africa’s economy.”

“It has been established that the marginalization of women in participation in the digital economy will further deepen the inequity and injustice in social economic development challenges facing women. Gender equity is crucial for human development, economic growth, and population health.

This growing digital gender divide can perpetuate high levels of poverty by limiting women’s access to information and services for health, job opportunities, safety and education for both themselves and their families. For women with access, patriarchal and cultural practices continue to limit that extent to which women can fully exercise rights to privacy, free expression and access to information.

As such, We [Kumasi Hive] through its Bridge the Gap initiative is excited about this opportunity the opportunity to impact more girls and to work together with Miss Africa Seed Fund/DCA Trust on developing the critical mass of competent female skilled personnel, innovators & entrepreneurs through practical skills training, problem-solving skills and leadership training using digital technologies.” -said Ms. Sandra Juliet Ahiataku ( Bridge the Gap/ Operations Associate – Kumasi Hive).

Lamia CHAARI, the principal investigator of 1st IoT Joint Program to African Young Women said; “I am absolutely very delighted to have been selected for this award and I would like to give recognition to my fantastic team who will contribute to the event success. Furthermore, Everyone at INTELLECT-Team at Digital Research Center of SFAX is enthusiastic about getting this award that will enable us to implement and concretize the 1st IoT Joint Program to African Young Women.