Two weeks ago we had the absolute pleasure to meet up with four incredibly intelligent ladies from Uganda. They have come a long way and have worked so hard to develop an app that could potentially save thousands of lives. This is their story.
It begins with four girls who did not know each other and had nothing in common, except for their great interest in software engineering and the desire to change the world. What brought them together was their mentor Josh, from their university who had participated in Imagine Cup
in 2012, a competition where students all over the world enter their technological ideas/advancements, and he quickly saw the potential in Rebecca Arono, Beatrice Nasike, Bonita Nanziri and Rachel Aitaru.
In the interview we had with the girls, Bonita Nanziri mentions that, while in the process of brainstorming about app ideas, they were also thinking about diseases that affects thousands of people. They thought about sickle cell disease. I had to ask them about the disease because, to be honest sickle cell is not in an everyday conversation. They girls from Uganda described to me that sickle cell disease is when the red blood cells in the body are not the normal round shape but infact they are misshaped causing lose in oxygen. They followed up by saying how an abundance of people in Uganda are diagnosed with the disease and how normal the disease is in Africa. They thought about the long process of getting diagnosed and how many lives are lost due to the amount of time that the results take to get to the lab and back to the individuals.
That’s when mDex and Afrigals came to life.The app, mDex is a mobile sickle cell diagnosis tool comprising a mobile app and external compound lense. It allows for quick, easy and affordable diagnosis, (imaginecup.com). The girls ended up winning the global student technology competition, Imagine Cup 2014, with this revolutionary app. Can you say girl power!? By providing people with their status on sickle cell disease then they can prevent the people with sickle cell from spreading the disease through reproduction and hopefully getting treatment for their current status.
AfriGal at We Day
These girls are the true definition of girl power because they pushed the boundaries of women stereotypes and succeeded to win in a predominantly male environment. Their journey is worth putting into perspective and realizing that we as women can truly do anything we put our minds to. While Grace Hopper, one of the first women programmers and Navy admiral, is the girls inspiration, our inspiration is them.
AfriGal posing with, actress, Hannah Simone
We wish them all the luck in the world in their journey to introduce their app, that will surely save many lives.
If you would like to see more of AfriGal, follow them @afriGalTech! ♥