Kenya is full of tech talents and when you are pretending to know one or two things about technology like me then you come to meet them. And they are fun people to talk to and sometime share stage with. For a long time technology in Kenya was considered to be a domain for men although the real reason for that is still beyond my pay grade. The good news is, that is no more. Yeah, now we have women in technology both in quantity and quality. Here is the list for tech power women, hardcore coders, tech Evangelists and tech innovators..
Tech Power Women
These are the most powerful tech women in Kenya
1. Isis Nyong’o
Isis formerly of Google where she was Business Development Manager is now the Vice President & Managing Director, Africa at Inmobi. being the Vice president and running African chapter of the World’s biggest independent mobile advertising network is not a task for the lightweight.. Isis is at the center of the Power in the world of mobile advertising..
Follow her at @inyongo
2. Ory Okolloh aka @Kenyanpundit
I have no idea what else is remaining to be written about Ory Okolloh. Considered by almost everyone in the tech world as one of the most creative people in the world. Yeah you all know about Ushahidi which she founded. Ushahidi is considered as one of the greatest technology to come out of Africa after Mpesa. She currently holds the position of Policy Manager for Africa with Google.
She used to blog at www.kenyanpundit.com, although i am not sure if she still do that. But follow her on twitter @Kenyanpundit
3. Dorothy Ooko
For a long time she was the Communications and PR manager for Nokia Eastern Southern Africa until recently she jumped ship and joined Google. Now serving as Communications & Public Affairs Manager for East & Francophone Africa. Being the spokesperson for a technology company is not an easy ride unless you have the language to communicate with the techies and those who are called lay men and women. Dorothy is good at talking the techies language and others.
Follow her on twitter @Dorothyooko
4.Kaburo Kobia
Kenyan tech space is thriving and Nairobi is the place to be. Kaburo is one person who has been pulling all the strings behind the scenes. She is the Project Manager, Local Digital Content at Kenya ICT Board and that should give you an idea of what i am talking about. When you think or hear somebody talk about local content remember this lady.
Follow her on twitter @kaburo
5. Juliana Rotich
She is a Ted fellow, i am tempted to say #thatisall but i have to continue. She is the Co-Founder, Executive Director at Ushahid and is part of the team that is building the next version of the Ushahidi Engine. When comes to blogging, she is on top of her game. She is the Environment Editor of Global Voices Online.
Follow her on twitter @afromusing and blog at http://www.afromusing.com
6. Agatha Gikunda
Head of EDX at Nokia East and Southern Africa Things are falling apart at Nokia at the moment but Agatha seems to be remaining put on her position in the company. That should tell you a lot about her and how highly she is regarded by the Powers to be at Finland. Part of her work has been managing local developer ecosystem by engaging local software developers to create relevant content for Ovi Store, providing developers with access to relevant Nokia specific training, and facilitating the marketing of developer applications. She is a real techie…
Follow her on twitter @AgathaGikunda
7. Njeri Rionge
She is a veteran of Kenyan tech space. Former Director and Co-founder of Wananchi Online Limited (www.wananchi.com), a leading IP communications solutions provider. She is Chief Techpreneuer at Insite Limited and Executive Director at Ignite Consulting Limited. Njeri Rionge was selected for the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee. Her first term ran from 26 June 2003 through the conclusion of ICANN’s annual meeting in 2005. She was then selected by the Nominating Committee to serve a second term, which runs through the conclusion of ICANN’s annual meeting in November 200.. There you have it.
Follow her on twitter at @njeririonge
Tech Evangelists
These are the ones who will take you to the tech heaven. They give you the news, explain complexity of the technology, come up with what you did not know exist. A must follow in my view
8. Jessica Colaco
Jessica is currently iHub Manager – Nairobi’s Tech Innovation Hub. She is a Researcher, Mobile Technology Evangelist, Founder of Mobile Boot Camp Kenya, Co-founder of AkiraChix and a Bass guitarist in Nairobi, Kenya. You want to know anything about mobile, she has the raw research data and information on that.
Follow her on @JessicaColaco
9. Rebecca Wanjiku
There are tech journalists and there are those real tech journalists who understand their trade. Sit back , relax , and get educated at the tech 101 by Wanjiku. She is the Founder of the technology company Fireside ltd and currently a freelance journalist with IDG News Service, a technology Newswire
Follow her on Twitter: @Wanjiku , Blog: www.wanjiku.co.ke
10. Nonie Muthoni
Talk of tech evangelist, Nonie is one those few people who truly love technology. She walk, talk , sleep and even dream technology and especially anything to do with internet . One of very few people who understand Digital Marketing in Kenya. She is also Brand Manager and owner of Deviate Advertising Kenya. By the way she is a blogger at kachwanya.com, watch out for her articles…inspiring
Follow her at @NonieMG and her blog http://noniemg.posterous.com/
11. Harriet Ocharo- a.k.a @Savvykenya
When her age-mates were still growing up, she was already blogging. She is among the most famous Kenyan bloggers . She once invited President Kagame to a function in Rwanda through twitter which he honored. And that was a true testimony of the power of social media. Harriet is currently pursuing an MSc in Telecommunication Innovation and Technology at Strathmore University, a program run jointly with the Safaricom Academy.
Follow her on twitter @savvykenya and blog www.savvykenya.com
12. Kui Kinyanjui
She kinder disappeared in the thin air after moving to IBM from Nation Media Group. She is currently External Relations Specialist at IBM. Before that she used to be my favorite tech writer for Business Daily.
Follow her on twitter @KuiKinyanjui
Hardcore Coders
They are the real tech deals…crunching the numbers, playing around with IF…ELSE logics, and making stupid computers and phones to understand human language..
13. Linda Kamau
Linda is the lead developer for Ushahidi in Kenya. At Ushahidi, she is working on the core platform which is web based. Currently she is working on http://uchaguzi.co.ke. Uchaguzi is a technology platform that allows citizens and civil society to monitor and report incidences around the electoral process.
Follow her on twitter @lkamau
14. Linet Kwamboka aka. Geekmate
Linet is Geo-software engineer and Consultant at books2schools.org . I am still wondering what Geo-software engineer means but i know she loves coding and mapping. So that probably comes from location something. She is a co-founder of Akirachix, young women in technology that are determined to increase the number of women in computing.. I support them 200 percent.
And when she is not coding and mapping she is helping the less fortunate. Founder of the books2schools initiative,a move to creating an elite society through building libraries and computer classes in rural areas and developing a learning culture
Follow her on twitter @g33kmate and support her books project books2schools.org
15. Angela Odour
I met Angela during the Word Camp Kenya in Naivasha where she represented Ushahidi. Her Software Development work on Ushahidi platform involves – Bug fixing and development of new features on the Ushahidi Web platform, user support – Managing queries from Ushahidi+Crowdmap Users. She is a member of Akirachix. She recently graduated from Strathmore University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Information Technology, where she discovered her deep interest in web and mobile technologies.
Follow her on twitter @AngieNicoleOD
16.Marie Githinji
Marie is a software developer with Infonet/Sodnet. She is part of Akirachix and Ushahidi team…
Follow Marie on twitter @Mariegithinji
17. Judith Owigar
She is the President of Akirachix. Judith works as IT engineer at the Japan center for conflict prevention. Akirachix under her leadership won the Unsung Heroes Award and got recognition from the US Embassy. They have been carrying out training programmes since September 2010, and so far we have trained students in computer literacy, entrepreneurship skills, web designing and programming courses.
Follow her on twitter @owigarj
Tech Innovators..
These are the unique ones, probably would fall in all the above categories. I call them great minds…
18. Nelly Ndonye
Not many talk about Nelly but she is one the techies i know with real functioning product in the market. Nelly Data Mobile application for providing real time data from the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE). You must have seen it on the business websites like Business Daily news website. Nelly is currently the Business Director at Squad Digital Limited
Follow her on twitter @nellyndonye
19. Jamila Bass
Jamila is the Co-founder and Current CEO of MFarm LTD(K) . M-Farm – an information service that focuses on delivering real time information to farmers on current market prices of their products. It also aims to bring farmers together in a collaborative forum.
Follow Jamila on twitter @kouljay
20. Lilian Nduati
Lilian is part of founding members of both Akirachix and MFarm teams. Currently she works for Nation Media as a writer.
Follow her on twitter @Nananduati
Is there a single Kenyan woman making a living off her own app/system/anything ?
Apart from AkiraChix and Ushahidi …
PR and Marketing is speaking IT which is different from being an IT person(doing IT). i agree with the hardcore coders and innovations only
My opinion, you cannot talk Techie Women without mentioning Dorcas Muthoni of Open world. She was in this field before many of the above and is the winner of the 2008 Anita Borg Institute Change Agent Award – sponsored by Google. Look her up: http://anitaborg.org/initiatives/awards/change-agent-awards/dorcas-muthoni/my 2 cents.
Yes Mwangi, lady number 14. The Geo Software Enthusiast..
Yes Jamila Bass running Mfarm. But I think it is about making more money, all of them if they like don’t necessarily need to be employed. Nelly can live comfortably on Nelly Data. Kenyanpundit use to run Ushahidi for years before she moved to Google, for her i think it is just trying new challenge. Nonie Muthoni is self employed. Also I know Wanjiku does not necessarily need to be a journalist to survive. And don’t forget Njeri Rionge who has been her own boss for years…
MFARM, Deviate.co.ke, Nelly Data, ….
Majority of these people can fit so many categories including the ones you agreed with. Agatha Gikunda started as coder and moved the ladder..so now that she is PR, does that disqualify her as IT person? Savvykenya is actually doing masters in IT, probably will join job market as a coder..so is she not IT person?
Agree, she should be high up on the list.
How can you forget to mention the likes of Mwende Gatabaki whowas declared Africas leading ICT Achiever Top public sector CIO in Africa by Africa ICT Achievers in South Africa and became the first AFRICAN to win the global ICT award ‘CIO 100’ — awarded by the US-based CIO magazine. Then again this not a totally different league of Kenyan tech women ..Just saying :-)
How can you forget to mention the likes of Mwende Gatabaki whowas declared Africas leading ICT Achiever Top public sector CIO in Africa by Africa ICT Achievers in South Africa and became the first AFRICAN to win the global ICT award ‘CIO 100’ — awarded by the US-based CIO magazine. Then again this not a totally different league of Kenyan tech women ..Just saying :-)
oopsy excuse the typos :-) How can you forget to mention the likes of Mwende Gatabaki who was declared Africas leading ICT Achiever Top public sector CIO in Africa by Africa ICT Achievers in South Africa and became the first AFRICAN to win the global ICT award ‘CIO 100’ — awarded by the US-based CIO magazine. Then again she is in a totally different league of Kenyan tech women ..Just saying :-)
oopsy excuse the typos :-) How can you forget to mention the likes of Mwende Gatabaki who was declared Africas leading ICT Achiever Top public sector CIO in Africa by Africa ICT Achievers in South Africa and became the first AFRICAN to win the global ICT award ‘CIO 100’ — awarded by the US-based CIO magazine. Then again she is in a totally different league of Kenyan tech women ..Just saying :-)
Ooooh ..a bad miss on my side. I am looking at her profile on the story posted on Standard online http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000033774&cid=300&”Mwende Gatabaki was
declared Africa’s leading ICT Achiever Top public sector CIO in Africa
by Africa ICT Achievers in South Africa, in 2007. She became the first African to win the global ICT award ‘CIO 100’ — awarded by the US-based CIO magazine, in 2009.”
I have just discovered that Judith Owigar recently won Anita Borg Change
Agent Award . Story on the iHub website
http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/2011/12/anita-borg-change-agent-award-judith-owigar/
“This year Judith Owigar of AkiraChix
was a recipient of the Anita Borg Change Agent Award. This was in
recognition of her commitment to promoting networking, training and
mentorship among technical women in computing.”
Apart from that three more Women people feel strongly that should have been included on the list are:
1. Dorcas Muthoni of Open world
2. Mwende Gatabaki of Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA)
3. Dr Kate Getao , the project Manager eLearning Africa
Ow and did i mention that most of the coders are making a living out of their own code? Yes, they work under a company but they write that code :)
Ow and did i mention that most of the coders are making a living out of their own code? Yes, they work under a company but they write that code :)
U have forgotten shikoh Gitau who was the first kenyan woman to win a google anita borg award when she was a Phd student at the University of Cape Town.She now works with google in south Africa.
Where is alice munyua……she allegedly brought IGF and ICANN to Kenya
Niiiice!!!!