5 Nigerian Girls Break Record In Technology

Five teenage girls from Regina Pacies Secondary School Onitsha, Anambra State in Nigeria were crowned world champions at the World Technovation Challenge in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, United States, last night. The girls beat teams from USA, Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan and China to clinch the gold medal.

The girls namely Promise Nnalue, Jessica Osita, Nwabuaku Ossai, Adaeze Onuigbo and Vivian Okoye are reported to be attracting a lot of attention in the world's greatest technological hub.

The Nigerian team at the event

The team representing Nigeria won the Challenge with a mobile application called the FD-Detector which they developed to help tackle the challenge of fake pharmaceutical products in Nigeria.

Under the tutelage of Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu the CEO of Edufun Technik STEM, the Golden Girls spent five months researching and developing FD-Detector which swept through over 2,000 competing applications to get to the finals in San Francisco.

Technovation is a programme that offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the programming skills they need to emerge as tech-entrepreneurs and leaders.

Every year, girls are invited to identify a problem in their communities, and then challenge them to solve them by developing Andriod applications that would address those problems.

115 countries participated in the qualifiers but only 12 teams from all over the world were selected as finalists for the pitch in Silicon Valley.

The girls will also be attending field trips, life-changing workshops including a networking session during their one week stay in America.

ONE Welcomes Gayle Smith As New CEO

Gayle Smith, top advisor on development issues to two American presidents and one of the world’s leading experts on global development recently joined ONE as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Smith succeeds Michael Elliott, who passed away in July 2016, and Adrian Lovett, who has served as the interim CEO.

Gayle Smith, CEO, ONE Campaign

 Smith was chosen after a long, extensive worldwide search. She will bring her unparalleled expertise on development and democracy issues to ONE, in addition to a great network of relationships across the African continent and around the world. In her most recent role as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Smith led a staff of more than 10,000 people working to end extreme poverty, foster sustained and inclusive economic growth, and promote resilient, democratic societies all over the world.

Gayle Smith

 In her words, “Never have there been greater challenges or opportunities on the road to sustainable and equitable development in Africa.” I’m thoroughly excited to work with the ONE team and our partners all over the world, particularly in Africa, to achieve the progress that is possible.”

ONE Co-founder, Bono of U2 expressed his excitement to have Smith join the ONE team. He stated that “She is a strong, savvy leader with deep expertise and decades of experience working to change the conditions that allow extreme poverty to thrive.”

We, at Save Our Needy wish a warm welcome to Gayle Smith! #StrongGirl