Had Shantelle Nyambura known earlier that the illness making her feel nauseous and weak was malaria, a preventable disease, she would have acted sooner.
Malaria, a frequent and deadly disease in Kenya, struck Shantelle while she was studying at Booker Academy. As a boarder, the experience left her shaken.
Now part of a team of five girls from the school, Shantelle helped develop Malarax, an app to spread knowledge about malaria and teach preventive actions.
The app, built as an educational gaming tool, enables users to learn through quizzes, games, articles, and other interactive activities about malaria.
“If I knew about Malarax before I got sick, I would have taken sleeping under a net more seriously,” Shantelle said.
Malarax was submitted to the Technovation World Summit held in San Francisco on October 17th, 2024.
At the summit, young innovators presented tech solutions ranging from agriculture to training apps for children with cochlear implants.
Team Mars, as they call themselves, was one of five finalists in the junior category.
Their path to the summit began by participating in the Technovation Challenge, a program backed by Safaricom’s Women in Tech initiative.
During the 12-week challenge, young girls teamed up with mentors from the program to create apps and AI-based technologies that solved real-world problems.
The Technovation Challenge urges participants to find community issues and craft tech solutions.
Shantelle and her group focused on three challenges: safe transport for boda boda riders, malaria, and issues facing people with disabilities.
They decided to address malaria.
Their teacher, Mr. Aggrey Sakwa Rapando, guided them throughout the app’s development, helping them identify the problem and provide the necessary resources.
“That app will truly help people in rural areas who lack information about malaria and how to prevent it,” Mr. Rapando said.
Since the challenge’s start in 2014, over 4,500 girls have taken part, with 427 participating this year alone.
Velma Ngoni, a Change Management Engineer at Safaricom and Technovation Ambassador in Kenya, looks forward to seeing more girls take part in similar challenges and pursue tech education.
She said, “If their prototype becomes a reality, it would be a big win, especially for residents of Kakamega County.”
Ngoni hopes that Kenya will see more solutions reach development stages, where they can be used in the country, noting that the first team to participate in Kenya has now graduated from university.
