See How these Female Entrepreneurs are Using Technology to Solve Problems in Nigeria

Recent years has seen an increase in the number of young Nigerian entrepreneurs  offering technology-based solutions to age-long social problems facing the country.

Among these young people are quite a number of females who are not only coming up with disruptive ideas that tackle challenges, they’re also making waves and succeeding in the male-dominated tech world.

We profile a few of them below, and how their ideas are solving some of the most pressing problems in Nigeria.

Damilola Olokesusi, Busola Majekodunmi and Damilola Quadry – Shuttlers

If you’re a Lagosian, you’ll relate with how stressful it is commuting to and from work. It’s even worse if you don’t have a car. Damilola Olokesusi, Busola Majekodunmi, and Damilola Quadry had same challenges, which led them to create a solution – Shuttlers.

Shuttlers enables professionals access comfortable and efficient transport system to and from work using a seat-matching technology.

With Shuttlers app, professionals in Lagos can book a seat on preferred route, pay for seat and track the location of their preferred mode of transportation, and receive push notifications on information relating to the service such as arrival and departure times.

Shuttlers’ vision is to enable professionals in metropolitan cities across Africa access stress-free, comfortable and affordable transport system for their daily commute needs.

Chika Madubuko – Greymate Care

Ever been in a situation where your elderly parents or grandparents were left unattended to because you were busy or just couldn’t find a help? Chika Madubuko launched Greymate Care to provide that help. She was in similar situation when her grandmother was ill, everyone was busy and couldn’t provide her with the care she deserved. According to Chika, “hiring a caregiver for her was so complicated. Sometimes miles were traveled in futility to interview one caregiver, and we often ended up with a poorly trained caregiver”.

This led to Greymate Care.

The startup is an online platform that connects the elderly and vulnerable adults to a caregiver, thus taking the stress of care off busy professionals. These caregivers are highly trained, insured, with backgrounds checks carried out on all of them.

Greymate Care has a vision to be the preferred provider of quality home care in Africa through high tech, prioritized and tailored commitment to service users.

Nkem Okocha – Mamamoni

As a child, Nkem Okocha saw her widowed mother struggle to take care of the family with no means of livelihood or finance to start a business. After resigning from her banking job of 8 years to run a small business, she discovered there were a lot of such women out there with no means of livelihood, nor skills to start businesses.

This led to Mamamoni

Mamamoni is a Social Enterprise that empowers poor rural and urban slum women with free vocational skills and mobile loans, helping them to become financially included in society, to increase their household incomes, to upskill them in their micro-businesses, and to educate their children.

Using a  web platform, people can donate to help these women break barriers in accessing finance to grow their businesses.

So far, the platform has impacted and empowered women in different communities with skills and tools to help them to succeed in their businesses.

Vivian Nwakah – Medsaf

Sometimes, there’s shortage of medications needed to save a life. Other times, there’s the risk of unknowingly purchasing expired products. These and more are the challenges Vivian hopes to address in Nigeria’s healthcare system.

Medsaf is making the process of buying and selling medication in Nigeria’s complex health system easy and efficient. They get medications directly from leading local and foreign manufacturers, eliminating issues relating to quality control, ensuring fair pricing, and delivering these medications to hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics all over the country. Medsaf also provides its customers with a robust inventory management system that allows them to see real-time stock levels for their medications, receive order reminders and alerts, and access historical sales data for forecasting.

Bukola Bolarinwa – Haima Health

Bukola Bolarnwa is the president of Sickle Cell Aid Foundation (SCAF), a non-governmental organisation established by her friend, Nkechi Azinge, to raise awareness about sickle cell disease and related health conditions.

In the course of being part of this organisation, she noticed sickle cell beneficiaries often required blood transfusions, and would ask for donors. In her words, “most hospitals do not have adequate blood in stock, or they require a replacement for the one they use. In addition they charge exorbitantly for each pint.”

This challenge led to the launch of Haima Health.

The startup is an online database, which allows people to register as voluntary blood donors that can be called on in emergency situations. There are currently about 1000 registered donors across 8 states in Nigeria who have donated over 500 pints of blood free of charge directly to patients.

With Haima Health, Bukola’s goal is to increase the number of voluntary blood donors to just 1% of the population and create a culture of donation devoid of superstition especially amongst young persons.