Have you ever thought that you are too young to make a difference? Or that the world does not see you or recognize you? All these are far from the truth because you are significant and you are one of the billions of people different individuals are thinking about.
Today, we are celebrating one of our very own who have gone on to represent Nigeria and Africa as a whole at the Global Technovation Program. The team, ‘Brain Squad,’ represented the country, Nigeria with their ‘Hands Out’ app at the World Pitch of the world’s largest tech entrepreneurship program in Silicon Valley.
Brain Squad is a team of five 10 and 11-year-old girls from Standard Bearers Schools, Lagos. They came together to develop an app ‘Hands Out’ that would make it easy for people to make donations to help the needy pay for school fees, food, shoes, books, stationery, medication and more. It was a medium through which they could contribute their quota in recovering, to an extent, the loss that happened at the school at Itafaji, Lagos as well as providing a solution to a societal problem that went beyond the boundary of Lagos to other states. The team members include Ayomikun Ariyo, Ivana Mordi, Jadesola Kassim, Munachiso Chigbo and Pandora Onyedire.
According to the young girls, they were inspired to develop the Hands Out app after the tragic collapse of a Primary School building in Itafaji, Lagos earlier this year. In their words,
On 16th of March 2019, the tragic news of a building which had a primary school within at Itafaji Lagos collapsed. Many children died and others were injured. The community was thrown into morning and the surviving children can’t understand why friends and relatives had to die. They need hope.
–Brain Squad
After successfully scaling through several rounds of the 2019 Technovation Challenge, the five young Nigerian girls made it to the final stage of the competition. At the Technovation World Pitch, each team was expected to use an app to solve a problem in their society. The girls won the regionals and went on the represent the country and continent on a global platform at Silicon Valley, California. At the pitch, the participants had access to a week of networking, field trips, workshops, and the chance to win scholarships.
Brain Squad, which was the only African team left in the competition, competed against fellow junior division finalists — Canada’s ‘Robot Unicorns’, the United States ‘Young Inventor’ and other teams for Technovation People’s Choice Awards for girls. The senior division finalists are ‘CoCo’ from Kazakhstan; ‘D3c0ders’ from Albania; Spain’s ‘LPSN’; ‘Powerful Daisies’ from Brazil; ‘Team Uproot’ from the United States; and India’s ‘Tech Witches’.
In an interview with BBC, the team shared the steps they took in building the Hands Out app. With previous knowledge in web development using Scratch, they developed more knowledge on how to use their blocks in the software and then they check that the app works using the Android platform.
Their goal is for this app to be an avenue for donors to help those in need and help more children access education beyond the happenings at Itafaji. The funds raised will be handled by the team’s alumni group and Stanbic IBTC Fund managers.
No one is too small to create a solution to a problem. Once you’ve found that problem you want to solve, team up with the right people and apply for the right opportunities that would fund the building of that solution. You too can be great.
Click on the Share button in the article to share with your friends and drop a comment on this post to tell us what topics or opportunities you would like to know or read about here.
SOURCES:
Pulse NG
BBC – Twiter
Featured Image Source: Bella Naija