Winners of Women In FinTech Hackathon 2021

Hey there👋, welcome to my blog. Following the blog I wrote about this hackathon sometime back, I hereby return to bring to you the conquerors of the grand finale of season two🎉.

TLDR; Kuzimba Services led by Eng. Ephrance Eunice Namugenyi, won the top cash prize of Shs4million!

In addition to that, a further three months of training in different aspects, including the business side of technology, product management and marketing was rewarded.

Side Note: I am also glad that I was part of it under MpaMpe Team as the Lead Developer! 🙂

The Nominees | Shortlisted

Before I present to you the rest of the winners, the event saw over 40 group applications from East Africa but majorly Uganda and only 17 of those were shortlisted. However, one group (Anzisha Africa) did not turn up!

These groups are made of utmost 4 members with a rule of 75% female domination. If you want to read more about them, read eligibility here.

The Hackathon

These groups were invited to take part for a long haul of a week, learning, sharing, being mentored, challenged and equipped with necessary skills that will see them deliver an MVP at the end of the session.

There was a different mentor every day that came through the hackathon that took place at Hive Colab in Kamwokya.

The Mentors

Some of the mentors that came through were:

✨ Simon Kamya
✨ Cleopatra Kanyunyuzi -Club Tangaza
✨ Damali SSali
✨ Catherine Namara
✨ Primera Muthoni
✨ Lukandwa Doreen - MFS Africa
✨ Innocent Kawoya - HiPipo CEO

The Ladies

There were more than 50 ladies among all the groups that came through and all these groups were female-led.

The Summit

Venue: Mestil Hotel

The week-long Hackathon, organized by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, Modusbox, Mojaloop and Level One Project, culminated into the Women in FinTech summit on Friday, October 15th, 2021 where the top six teams were announced and got to share USD5,000 in prizes in addition to being part of a 90-day Business Incubator Program.

The Top Six Teams🏆:

The top six teams out of the sixteen teams were:

🥇 Kuzimba Online Services

An Online Supermarket for Construction and Engineering. Connect with experts in Engineering, carpentry etc.
More Info: Website

🥈 Hack Girls

An interoperable finance management solution to enable NGOs and other organizations to disburse bulk transactions to final beneficiaries.
More Info: Website (MVP)

🥉PesaJet (Farmore)

A digital platform for smallholder farmers offering garden inputs, markets, savings and loans.
More Info: Website

🏅Green Shares

Digital Payments for smallholder Farmers.
More Info: Website

🏅MpaMpe

A crowdfunding web platform for young entrepreneurs, businesses and other noble causes.
More Info: Website (MVP)

🏅Farmers Financial Development Avenue (FFDA)

A solution that connects farmers to banks, helping them have easy access to credit services.
More Info: Contact

The Ladies Metamorphosize Into FinTech Queens 👑

All the participants received certificates of excellence and were encouraged to go on with their products to fully get them into mainstream Uganda to further enhance financial inclusion.

The Highlights

One of my biggest inspirations at the #WomenInFinTech 2021 Hackathon was a one Emilly, a 15-year-old CEO of PesaJet!

I once had that women can't win, women can't be in tech or so...we want more girls in such spaces like tech, embrace such spaces even when still at school. Emilly N (Namagunga Student)

Our intention and that of our partners is to ensure that the technology gender gap is closed. Platforms like the Women in FinTech hackathon and summit are just one example of what we are doing to empower women, Innocent Kawooya (CEO HiPipo)

It's good to understand regulations & laws especially those that affect Finance. So as women in Fintech, you should be able to get through all this and the tech space Elizabeth Atukunda (Lawyer & one of the Guest Speakers)

During the entire week, we learnt a lot of documentation, business planning, prototyping, pitch decking and many more connections were made.
Halimah Bukirwa - Team Lead Hack Girls

The government of Uganda is committed to enhancing financial inclusion and women empowerment.
I promise to work with HiPipo to present all the sixteen teams’ ideas to the Ministry of ICT and deliberate on how they can be further helped.
Hon David Karubanga(HiPipo Patron and MP for Kigorobya County)

The Gallery

Photo collages about the event:
Credit | Met Media Ug

The Parting Shot

The hackathon introduced the participants to new and emerging tools and technologies that are available to help them create inclusive and instant payment solutions that can ably serve people at the bottom of the pyramid.

The Notes:

📌 Insider UG
📌 New Vision
📌 Observer
📌 My Blog
📌 HiPipo
📌 Ug Standard

The Hashtags

To follow the discussion and all events, news.. check out

#Mojaloop
#WomenInFinTech
#LevelOneProject

It was a privilege for me to participate in this hackathon, every day was a learning and connecting day and I am glad to have been part of the MpaMpe Team of fellow tech students.

My highlight
This came when I had to turn the idea we had as a team into an MVP in just two days! I remember I barely slept for those nights and I had to use Node JS with Express JS , the techs ain't familiar with but I did enjoy it.

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Ronnie Atuhaire 🤓