HiPipo reveals the winners of women in FinTech Hackathon 22
Last Friday, HiPipo held the grand finale summit at Mestil to celebrate the winners of this year’s Women In FinTech Hackathon. Of the 20 shortlisted teams, only six got to share a $10,000 (sh38m) prize pool to further develop and implement their ideas.
Team Elevation came first and got 4 million. Team APA received 2.5 million and placed second with Team Oliwa third and walked away with 1.5 million in cash. The top teams would also participate in a BootCamp and post-mentorship. Let’s see more details.
Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
The nominees | Shortlisted
Before I present to you the rest of the winners, the event saw about 50 group applications from East Africa, but mainly Uganda, and only 20 of these were shortlisted.
The teams on the list come from across the region, including a team from Rwanda and Tanzania.
Neza Charlotte, FinTech’s Events Manager – HiPipo
See the list of a full list of nominees here;
The 20 teams had a long week of ideas, design, development and coding from various mentors. The 2022 Women in FinTech Hackathon reached its climax on Thursday 15th September with these teams presenting their final minimum viable products (MVPs) to the judges.
Also read; The third edition of the Women in FinTech Hackathon is here!
The summit and winners
The event took place at Mestil last Friday as so many notable people around the country graced the event. These included Hon Owek Joyce Ssebugwawo, Minister of ICT and who also happened to be the chief guest. Prof Maggie Kigozi, is an investment expert and also serves as a recognized advisor to the HiPipo Foundation, the parent company under which the Hackathon runs.
Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
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.
Honorable Joyce Nabbosa
As previously mentioned, there were six overall teams sharing a total of USD 10,000. These top six teams in order were;
1. Team Elevation
An application that helps pregnant women prepare for maternity (both post and pregnancy) helps them save for baby showers, maternity bills, baby needs, personal needs, etc.
Height was led by Angela Bukirwa and had a lion’s share of the prize pool. They won sh4M as overall winners.,
2. Team APA (Academic Personal Assistant)
A digital assistant that gives students at higher learning institutions instant access to academic resources and seamless updates on results, assignments and deadlines, all via an automated human conversational experience in their WhatsApp inbox. Students can also pay tuition fees and other fees like ID replacements, retakes, re-dos, etc. through the WhatsApp messaging application.
The team led by Diana Najjuma took sh2.5M as first runner up.
3. Olive
An application for event management. One can book tickets for events and also have friends track them in case they have an emergency while they are out having fun.
The team was led by Maria Luzinda and took sh2M as second.
4. Go green
A crowd-sourcing platform that helps solicit donations to support climate activists. The team was led by Havillah Mirembe and walked away with sh1.5M.
5. Insure your wallet
A mobile application that provides fast, reliable and affordable insurance services from as low as UGX 50,000. The target market includes drivers and passengers (general road users) and provides safety and comfort guarantees while traveling. It also aims to reduce the lengthy bureaucratic processes people go through while making insurance claims.
Advertisement – Continue Reading Below
The team was led by Evelyn N and pocketed 1M UGX.
6. Land resource
This team was led by Novita N and came all the way from Kisoro. Their idea is to rent out land for a fee. They also walked away with 1M UGX. This solution elevates land to digital space for digital and online use while simultaneously gaining access to land for various purposes. It also enables an increase in the value of the land for the respective owners.
There was no sixth (6th) position as a matter of fact Insure wallet and Land resource team draw. Land’s Resource gained attention when it was one of the teams that came through from Kisoro, western part of Uganda to participate in this year’s edition. They were also awarded around USD 1000 from Pivot Pay CEO, Shamim for their hard work.
Another team called Sueno_Wetaase was awarded 300 USD from Belle Beauty for being the most active team throughout the hackathon. Belle Beauty participated in last year’s edition.
We are excited about this year’s edition. The last 2 editions have been very impactful with different participants able to take their innovations to market while others are in the process.
Kawooya Innocent, Managing Director – HiPipo
Conclusion
Winning is one thing, but these startups should go further and introduce their solutions to the market for consumption. More than 80 innovators gathered with the goal of closing the gender gap in access to technology, skills and use of digital financial services.
