Accra-Ghana, May 2, GNA – Miss Selasi Ama Domi-Kuwornu, a 21-year-old final year student at the University of Cape Coast, has been crowned Ms. Geek Africa 2023 during a competition held in Zimbabwe.
The keenly contested event was held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe from the 26th to 28th of April 2023.
For her prize, she received a certificate, laptop, smartphone, and a cash prize of US$5,000.
A technology firm, Ascend Digital, also promised to give her a cash price of US$1,000 in addition to a job opportunity in Accra, to enable her to secure better future.
She would also be sponsored by GITEX Africa to participate in the GITEX Africa Digital Summit from May 31 to June 2, 2023, in Marrakech, Morocco.
The summit is aimed at connecting tech titans, governments, SMEs, Start-ups, coders, investors, and academia to accelerate, collaborate and explore new ventures.
Miss Domi-Kuwornu won the highly competitive contest after beating six other young ladies, who are knowledgeable in ICT from Rwanda, Kenya, Benin, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Niger.
All applicants presented a solution that was original, scalable and feasible within Africa and beyond, which seeks to address some challenges in Africa using technology.
Miss Domi-Kuwornu was adjudged the Overall Winner after presenting a project called “Kasa Cash”, an offline system that enables uneducated, physically-challenged and unserved communities to effortlessly perform financial services without any third-party assistance.
Her project was also in tune with the theme for the summit: “Connect, Transform and Innovate” organised by the Smart Africa Alliance, which focused on challenges that are unique to Africa.
The other young ladies presented IT solutions on ‘femme entrepreneur’ from Niger, ‘Smart Miner Monitoring System’ from Rwanda, ‘Tekeleza to solve water crisis’ from Kenya, ‘Just Live’ from Zambia, ‘Management of solar power generation systems’ from Zimbabwe, and ‘Blood connect’ from Benin.
Miss Domi-Kuwornu’s win comes after she won the 2019 Ms. Geek Ghana competition when she was at Level 100 at the UCC.
The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation on October 9, 2019, launched the Ms. Geek Ghana Competition, aimed at empowering girls in the field of ICT.
The sector Minister, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, during the launch, highlighed the role females bring to the tech-sector and noted that it would offer young girls an opportunity to showcase what they have.
The Minister thus called on all stakeholders to support the competition to encourage more girls to consider a career in science and technology.
“The competition will empower young girls by educating them in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” she said.
The Geek competition seeks to change the attitude of young girls towards the adoption of ICT and also equip them with digital skills, which is in line with the SDG goal five objectives of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
