Best women in Fintech team awarded
The 2022 Women in FinTech Hackathon reached its climax on Friday with six teams getting their share of the collective $10,000 (sh38 million) prize money to develop their ideas.
Of the 20 teams selected for the Hackathon, the overall winner was Elevation, bagging sh4m, followed by Academic Personal Assistant (sh2.5m), Oliwa Events (sh2m), Go Green (sh1.5m) and Insure Wallet and Lands Resource receive (sh1m) each in that order.
The Women in FinTech Hackathon is part of HiPipo’s commitment to empowering women with the necessary digital and financial inclusion skills to be able to innovate and develop new products.
Speaking at the third edition of the ceremony in Kampala, Minister of State for Information and Communication Technology Joyce Nabbosa Ssebugwawo called on private sector players to do more to make women economically included.
Minister of State for Information and Communications Technology Joyce Nabbosa Ssebugwawo (2L) presents a certificate to a participant. (Courtesy photo)
“Women are overrepresented among the unbanked in Uganda. For example, there is a large gender gap in access to technology, skills and financial products for women, she said.
“Despite global efforts, the inclusion of women has made little progress over the past decade [because] women continue to face greater economic exclusion compared to men with shocks such as the pandemic threatening to reverse some of the gains made so far.”
The Hackathon was organized by HiPipo in collaboration with Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, CyberPLC Academy and Crosslake Technologies and generously supported by the Gates Foundation.
According to Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO, all teams met the minimum expectations of the hackathon as they were able to have working minimum viable products (MVPs) and also integrated third-party payment solutions.
Former Uganda Investment Authority Managing Director Maggie Kigozi urged the teams to focus on building a good relationship with their clients, saying these will lead them to flourish in business.
“You have to have integrity. When you promise us something, make it happen,” she told the teams.
Former Uganda Investment Authority CEO Maggie Kigozi speaks at the ceremony. (Courtesy photo)
“I congratulate you for your ideas and innovations. I want to congratulate the government for the role it has played in driving ICT. Universal Primary Education (UPE) made a huge difference in this country, especially for women.
“When money was limited at home, the boys went to school and for us (girls) we stayed at home. But because of UPE and now Universal Secondary Education (USE), women have been pulled out of the homes and farms, she added.
The founder and CEO of Pivot Payments Limited, Princess Shamirah Kimbugwe, said there are several untapped opportunities in the market that can be exploited to develop good solutions.
“Currently, access to healthcare in Uganda is a virgin area that can be explored. The lack of trust, bookkeeping are other challenges in this market. You can develop systems that, for example, make document verification and facial identification very easy [as a solution]”, she advised.
