DCA Trust Announces eMobilis, as the Winner of the inaugural USD 5000 Miss.Africa Seed Fund

NAIROBI, Kenya - March 15, 2016 - PRLog -- The Miss. Africa Initiative, a trust program of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) announces the winner of the Miss.Africa 2015 USD 5000 Seed Fund (http://dotconnectafrica.org/yes-campaign/miss-africa/missdotafrica-2015-seed-funding/) as eMobilis which were launched in July 2015.

DCA Trust received an overwhelming number of applications of over 90 from more than 18 Countries in Africa across the African continent to apply for the Miss.Africa Seed Fund.

DCA Trust, Miss.Africa Seed Fund 2015 in addition, to the  Five Thousand United States Dollars (USD 5000) grand prize,  a category of One Thousand United States Dollars (USD 1000) was granted  as a second prize for other applicants from emerging African countries that create further socio-economic value by effectively leveraging tech opportunities.  Therefore, this brings the total price of the Inaugural 2015 Miss.Africa seed fund to USD 7000.

eMobilis is the grand prize winner of the Inaugural Miss.Africa Seed Fund for an amount of USD 5,000.  eMobilis is a Mobile Technology Institute that focuses on training women & girls on Mobile Software Development, as well as Network Infrastructure Management that was founded in 2008 and is the first of its kind in Sub Saharan Africa. eMobilis runs Mobigirlz aimed at growing the ecosystem of women in technology. Through Mobigirlz girls/women discover an interest in technology and down the road venture into STEM Careers, innovate and create sustainable businesses that solve real time problems in local communities.

The other two winners of the USD 1000.00 prize are a Madagascar based startup initiative Tech MDG / Pyladies Antananarivo, MDG led by Ms. Aina Anjary Fenomamy R. to encourage girls to study  and  build career in computer sciences or other STEM fields as well as educate Malagasy mothers concerning the use of technology, and Pycon Cameroon, led by Mr. Ngangsi Richard that teaches computer coding to girls and women.

Ms. Kim Gueho DCA Trust Corporate Trustee and Advisory Board Member gave a standing ovation to all the Nominees, in particular to the Inaugural winner, eMobilis, saying it responded to all the criteria (of the Seed Fund) and that it offers 'great innovative training for women. Our fund is very excited with this program in general, as well as to lend financial support to these initiatives".

Recalling the new year message by the our Founder and CEO of DCA Trust and Miss.Africa initiative Sophia Bekele, who hailed 2016 "Year of  The Women" :

"There are many reasons I came up with this theme, but mostly I feel  a sea-change is happening and my global engagement everywhere tells me the Universe is now on the side of women. This is in no way to reject our strongest supporters, men, but to simply acknowledge that women have become more independent, smart, accomplished, finding their new found roles and using it to push the limits of their opportunity confidently and with a great sense of responsibility, and care.  And let us not forget women are leading by example."

Giving a statement to this press release, Bekele said

"The Miss.Africa program has come a long way from just an idea to an incredible initiative to promote girls and women with the sole aim of improving their digital self-awareness and empowerment to actually funding their dreams. What a great way to celebrate this year's  Women's History Month!".

Ms. Nancy Wanjira- Mobigirlz Program Manager of eMobilis, speaking after the win said:

"We are thrilled to learn that we emerged as a finalist and winner of the inaugural 2015 Miss. Africa Seed Fund. Thank you to DotConnectAfrica Trust for directly supporting eMobilis Mobigirlz initiative and awarding us with the grant to improve technology literacy and education among girls while strengthening their stance in the tech field. We believe that for us to drive tech progress in Kenya and Africa as a whole we need to put girls in the driver's seat and empower them to reach their full potential. We are very excited to work with DotConnectAfrica in this partnership."

For the inaugural grand prize, Code for Cape Town from South Africa emerged as the second runner up followed by Girls In Tech (GTech) program under Africa ICT Right from Ghana and Abo Coders from Nigeria. Among the countries, Nigeria emerged with the most number of applications at 23% followed by Kenya (20%), Uganda (15%).  South Africa and Tanzania tied at 8%, Ghana (6%), Cameroon (5%) and Rwanda with 4 % of the entries.Other which fell under 1% include Algeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Swaziland.

Miss.Africa Seed Fund will be an annual fund with applicants being selected from entries of interest within the African continent.