For Immediate Release.   

Wheels to the 2021 Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit that will also feature the 8^th edition of Digital Impact Awards Africa have been set in motion with the opening of all channels for submissions of entries.

The Digital and Financial Inclusion summit will explore the strategic trends and technologies that are shaping the future of Digital, Information Technology and Business with special attention to the safety of customers’ funds and security of platforms in the financial technology industry. The summit will discuss at length the disruptive impact of COVID-19 on the general business ecosystem and what players must do to recover.

This year’s summit will bring together C-Level executives that are spearheading the introduction, adoption and usage of digital and financial services across Africa. Speakers will come from multinationals, large enterprises, small and mid-sized enterprises, start-ups, informal businesses (such as market vendors and smallholder farmers) and sole proprietorships (public transport drivers/riders and e-commerce delivery agents), among others.  

As such, all people interested in being part of the 2021 Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit speakers and presenters in all the aforementioned categories should email their expression of interest to socialweb@HiPipo.com before November 20^th. Such a submission should include a brief about the potential panelist and why they must be shortlisted.

#DIAA2021 Nominations underway.

This call for entries thus marks the start of a comprehensive Digital Impact Awards Africa entry submission and validation process that will run until November 13^th, 2021. This will then be followed by the release of a list of nominees, Jury assessment and a rollout of public voting from November 17^th to December 9^th.

Under the theme #IncludeEveryone, Digital Impact Awards Africa is a platform that promotes Digital Inclusion, Financial Inclusion and Cyber security. Precisely, the Awards seek to recognize, celebrate and appreciate different individuals and organizations that are spearheading the use of digital mediums to better serve their communities.

Altogether, there are 10 Africa-focused and 17 Uganda-dedicated categories as shown in the #DIAA2021 entries’ submission form.

This year’s Digital and Financial Inclusion summit will run from 9^th to 10^th December at Hive Colab and Mestil Hotel respectively, with the Awards gala set to be the climax of this two-day interactive, informative and intriguing activity.

The summit and awards will use 3 official tags

#IncludeEveryone #DIAA2021 #LevelOneProject

Categories

1.  Mavmica Acebooktwittermore

Africa

1. Africa Best FinTech Innovation
2. Africa Best Smart Device Initiative
3. Africa Best Internet Access Initiative
4. Africa Best Mobile Innovation for Health
5. Africa Best Mobile Innovation for Agriculture
6. Africa Best Mobile Innovation for Education
7. Africa Best Mobile Innovation for Banking
8. Africa WomenInFinTech – Leadership Award (Personality)
9. Africa Financial Inclusion – Medal of Honor (Personality)
10. Africa Best Digital Response to Covid Impact.

Uganda

1. Financial Inclusion Excellence
2. Women Financial Inclusion Outstanding Contribution
3. Digital Banking Excellence (Online/Web, Mobile, Social Banking)
4. E-Commerce Excellence
5. Agriculture Digitization Excellence
6. Green Energy Excellence Powered by Financial Inclusion.
7. Best Digital Customer Experience
8. Best Brand on Social Media (Financial Services, Telecom, IT)
9. Best Brand on Social Media (Consumer Goods)
10. Best Brand on Social Media (Utilities, Government Services)
11. Best Digital Powered Campaign
12. Best Mobile Payments (Innovation)
13. Best Cards Payments (Innovation)
14. Best Community Banking
15. Best Digital Awareness Initiative (Financial Literacy, Cybersecurity)
16. Best Digital Embrace (Non-Consumer Facing Brand)
17. Digital Brand of the Year

Ends.

Our Reporter.

The week-long Women in Fintech Hackathon came to an end last Friday with Kuzimba Services, providers of online construction and engineering solutions being declared winners after shrugging off tough competition for the top prize.

Organised by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox, Mojaloop and Level One Project, the hackathon that culminated into the Women in Fintech summit, also saw all the teams that made it into the top six rewarded with cash prizes in addition to further three months training –incubation program.

Kuzimba services, whose team leader is Eng. Ephrance Eunice Namugenyi, won the top cash prize of Shs4million in addition to further three month training in different aspects, including business side of technology, product management and marketing. Hack Girls – developers of an interoperable payment platform for NGOs were second while PesaJet – with their digital agriculture platform named Farmore came third.

“What was just an idea has turned out to be real and usable. The hackathon has been hectic but we were up to the task. We knew we had a good product that addresses real community needs but winning the overall product has been a huge surprise,” Eng. Namugenyi told Daily Monitor in an interview after her team scoping the overall prize.

She added:  “With Kuzimba web/mobile app, you can quickly get help on estate/site/home building/construction. We provide online and fast engineering solutions, making purchase of building materials and transportation easy as well as providing access to building experts, carpenters, transportation means, architects, interior designers, cleaners and engineers.”

The Women in Fintech hackathon had 16 teams that were women led and women dominated with each team having between two to four members, majority of whom under the age of 30 years. 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.

Trials and Tribulations.

Although HiPipo and partners, including Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox, Mojaloop and Level One Project, are looking at empowering more women in the technology space, particular in areas of developing innovative and interoperable technologic solutions, there are still numerous barriers hindering women participation in Fintech and technology as a whole.

Discussing challenges and way forward at the Women in Fintech Summit, Founder and Author of Ideation Corner, Ms Damali Ssali noted that cost of both internet and digital transaction remains way beyond what many women, including those in Micro, Small and Medium enterprises can afford. And this explains why only just about 10 per cent of money is being exchanged digitally in Uganda.

As for Ms Doreen Lukandwa, the Vice President Global Enterprises at MFS Africa/Beyonic, women need to be allowed to be revolutionaries as it is through this freedom to invert and innovate that they can eventually develop products that empower them to be better across the economic sectors.       

Offer support.

Nonetheless, Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO noted that even amidst several challenges, stakeholders both government and private must continue to empower and encourage more women participation in technology at all stages as this is one of the surest ways of closing the gender diversity gap in the technology space.

“Our intention and that of our partners is to ensure that the technological 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 said.

 He continued: “We want to see more women in the digital innovation space, support them to not just understand but also innovate digitally. We will also continue working towards inclusive digital solutions as well as creating technologies that support and help populations at the bottom of the pyramid get financially included.”

Additionally, Hon David Karubanga, the HiPipo Patron and MP for Kigorobya County noted that the government of Uganda is committed to enhancing financial inclusion and women empowerment.

He promised 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.

Top Six Teams.

1. Kuzimba Online Services – Online Supermarket for Construction and Engineering.

2. Hack Girls – An interoperable finance management solution to enable NGOs and other organisations disburse bulk transactions to final beneficiaries.

3. PesaJet (Farmore) – A digital platform for smallholder farmers offering garden inputs, markets, savings and loans.

4. Green Shares – Digital Payments for fmallholder Farmers

5. Mpa Mpe – A fundraising platform for young entrepreneurs and their businesses.

6. Farmers Financial Development Avenue (FFDA) – A solution that connects farmers to banks, helping them have easy access to credit services.

Ends.

Kampala, Wednesday October 13, 2021: Participants at the on-going Women in FinTech Hackathon have been challenged to make good use of the Internet as it has several resources needed for product success.

This message was delivered by Damali Ssali, a seasoned Chartered Accountant, Book Author and the Founder of the Ideation Corner on Day 5 of the Women in FinTech Hackathon.

Damali Ssali noted that even though Product Development and Roll-out is a hectic process, putting the Internet to proper use can help fix several issues.

“The internet as a tool contains a lot of resources from product development, research and fundraising among others. The internet will also help you make sure that the product you are developing is not a duplicate of what is already on the market. The internet will help you improve your product. Put it to proper use,” Damali Ssali noted.

Ms Ssali further asked the participants to join FinTech minded and Tech based groups as these too have a lot of technical resources that are crucial for product success.

She later engaged participants in a question and answer session where teams were allowed to ask questions about Technology, Finance, Marketing, and Fundraising.

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

Empowering Innovators.

HiPipo is proud to remain one of the continent’s premier advocates for the creation, dissemination and adoption of digital financial services, and we remain highly enthusiastic to provide the ways and means for our innovators to fully develop solutions that will collectively lead millions of our people to better lives and improved livelihoods.

The inaugural Women in FinTech initiative in 2020 exceeded expectations and left no doubt that women are ready to play a starring role in the digital financial services space and can fill the product gap the sector currently contends with.

All the 15 participating teams in 2020 presented excellent ideas, and HiPipo is more than pleased to reveal that it supported three (3) of them to grow into startups, each with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that’s ready for the market, which was a success to an extent that they went on to take part in the recently-concluded 40Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

Ends.

Day four of the ongoing Women in FinTech Hackathon was a huge success as participants learnt about Product Management, Prototyping, and the Digital Financial Services Providers (DFSPs) ecosystem.

The day’s mentor, Primera Muthoni; an ICT Product Development Expert and a senior mentor with Girls for Girls, Uganda Program urged the participants to pay utmost attention to product research, and the know your customer (KYC) matrix as the two are key to product success.

Discussing product management, Muthoni noted that the only way to develop a sustainable product is by identifying a problem, knowing the audience it affects and then coming up with a solution.

She further advised the groups to identify their competitive advantage and include it in their product development stages such that it can be compelling to any potential investors.

“An investor wants to see where you are headed. Does your product have a promise? How do the market projections look like?” Muthoni noted.

She added that a good product should have both a product road-map and technology roadmap and this should be realized in no more than 12 weeks.

“By the time the product is ready, make sure you have double or triple-checked it. Leave no room for a foul start because it creates a bad perception about your product,” she said.

Primera Muthoni was the third mentor at the ongoing Women in FinTech Hackathon that has attracted 17 women-led teams of between two to four members each. The teams are coming up with financial inclusion solutions that address their community needs, aided by Level One Project principles and latest technologies.

The other mentors before her were Catherine Namara; a telecommunications engineer, project management expert, an alumna of the G4G (Girls4Girls) STEM and the current head of fundraising and strategy at Girls4Girls and Doreen Lukandwa; the Beyonic/MFS Africa vice president (global enterprises).

During the Day Four morning session led by Cleopatra Kanyunyuzi, the co-founder of Club Tangaza, the Hackathon participants were taken through Digital Financial Service Providers (DFSPs), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and Interoperability Models citing that these help to ease the work of the innovators, by providing customers with real time customer transactions, security, efficiency, accountability and convenience.

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

Empowering Innovators.

HiPipo is proud to remain one of the continent’s premier advocates for the creation, dissemination and adoption of digital financial services, and we remain highly enthusiastic to provide the ways and means for our innovators to fully develop solutions that will collectively lead millions of our people to better lives and improved livelihoods.

The inaugural Women in FinTech initiative in 2020 exceeded expectations and left no doubt that women are ready to play a starring role in the digital financial services space and can fill the product gap the sector currently contends with.

All the 15 participating teams in 2020 presented excellent ideas, and HiPipo is more than pleased to reveal that it supported three (3) of them to grow into startups, each with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that’s ready for the market, which was a success to an extent that they went on to take part in the recently-concluded 40Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

Ends.

Kampala, Monday October 11, 2021: Day Three of the #WomenInFinTech #LevelOneProject Hackathon has successfully ended with discussions focusing on why young innovators must draw proper business cases and plans if they are to effectively manage their projects.

Day three training was led by Catherine Namara; a telecommunications engineer, project management expert, an alumna of the G4G (Girls4Girls) STEM and the current head of fundraising and strategy at Girls4Girls.

Catherine Namara told the over 70 innovators taking part in the hackathon that they must get mentorship from people who have done amazing things and have been able to transcend through different levels of work.

“Reach out to stars because that is when your product is going to get into that edge cutting element. When you get to a person who has been doing mobile money payments, they can give you some critical information to take your product further,” she said.

Ms Namara stressed the need for developers to understand what need/s their innovations seek to solve, saying that companies were no longer investing in things that don’t have facts about.

“Every single idea has to have facts. You have to do research before you even get into prototyping. One step at a time then you realise that things are not that tough. You must always plan well and also communicate effectively with all your stakeholders,” she said.

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

The 2021 #LevelOneProject #WomenInFinTech Hackathon has 17 women led teams and over 70 participants altogether. The teams are coming up with financial inclusion solutions that address their community needs, aided by Level One Project principles and latest technologies.

Empowering Innovators

HiPipo is proud to remain one of the continent’s premier advocates for the creation, dissemination and adoption of digital financial services, and we remain highly enthusiastic to provide the ways and means for our innovators to fully develop solutions that will collectively lead millions of our people to better lives and improved livelihoods.

The inaugural Women in FinTech initiative in 2020 exceeded expectations and left no doubt that women are ready to play a starring role in the digital financial services space and can fill the product gap the sector currently contends with.

All the 15 participating teams in 2020 presented excellent ideas, and HiPipo is more than pleased to reveal that it supported three (3) of them to grow into startups, each with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that’s ready for the market, which was a success to an extent that they went on to take part in the recently-concluded 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

Ends.