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Zimbabwe’s triumphant trio shows off their boarding pass after securing first place at the regional She Loves Tech Competitions held in Cape Town, South Africa, last Friday

Shamiso Dzingire, Business Reporter
THREE Zimbabwean women entrepreneurs clinched the top regional innovation accolade at the recent “2018 She Loves Tech” regional competitions after beating 11 other teams.

The competition was held in Cape Town, South Africa last Friday.

At the competition, the trio — Miss Sicelo Dube, Miss Lucia Ncube and Miss Vimbainashe Guri presented a Prep Education App, which is a mobile application used for education and prevention of HIV.

They will represent the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) at the She Loves Tech International Conference, which will be held in Beijing, China on September 15.

The competition is the world’s largest start-up competition focusing on women and technology. It provides a platform for women entrepreneurs and start-ups dedicated to improving lives of women globally.

Speaking to Business Chronicle yesterday, one of the team members, who is also the co-founder and director of STEM at Elevate Trust, Miss Sicelo Dube, said they were elated after they won the regional championships.

“We did not expect to win this competition but we are so excited. Now that we have won the regional championships, we will be going to the global stage in China and we are hopeful we will shine there,” said Miss Dube.

At the competitions, the team presented an initiative called “The Future is Female, The Future is Digital”, which is inspired by the need to have more females in the digital spaces.

Miss Dube said: “An example we presented at the competition is the Prep Education App, which is one of the first things we can do in the coding spaces to help women solve women problems.”

“Right now, there is a global initiative called Post-exposure Prophylaxis (PeP) being spearheaded by Population Services International PSI. Instead of people taking PeP, they can do Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEp) to avoid exposure to HIV but most people do not know about that and adolescents and young women remain vulnerable to HIV,” said Miss Dube.

According to Miss Dube, the Prep Education Application will enable women to have information on their fingertips in line with global trends.

Miss Dube said they want to start an ICT laboratory where they will train young girls to code so as to create technological solutions for women’s needs.

“We want to create applications which are used for information dissemination on important issues relating to women,” she said.

The women said they have begun preparing for the global championships and are taking note of the corrections highlighted by judges in order to better improve their pitch.

Miss Dube expressed gratitude to the network provider NetOne, which sponsored their regional championships trip. The three women are, however, yet to secure sponsorship for the trip to China.

@ShamisoDzingire