Five Kenyan schoolgirls develops an app to end FGM, selected to compete for $15,000 at Technovation Challenge in California | WestMac Media

By Staff Reporter 

Five tech Kenyan schoolgirls aged 15 to 17 have been selected to compete for $15,000 at Technovation Challenge in California for developing 'I-Cut', an app to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). 

I-Cut is designed to connect girls at risk of FGM with rescue centres and gives legal and medical help to those who have been cut.

Its simple interface has five buttons - help, rescue, report, information on FGM, donate and feedback – offering users different services. 

The five teenager calling themselves 'Restorers' are the only Africans selected to take part in this year's international Technovation competition, where girls develop mobile apps to end problems in their communities. 

Synthia Otieno, one of the team says they call themselves the 'Restorers' because they want to restore hope to hopeless girls. 

The restorers are set to showcase I-Cut at the annual all-female competition to be held in Silicon Valley between August 7th and 11th. 

And Stacy Owino also team member says FGM is a big problem affecting girls worldwide and it is a problem they want to solve. 

She adds that this whole experience will change their lives. 

“Whether we win or not, our perspective of the world and the possibilities it has will change for the better,” says Stacy. 

The five girls hail from Kenya's western city of Kisumu. Reports show that one in four Kenyan women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, even though it is illegal in the East African nation. 

Meanwhile, every year, Technovation, a non-profit 501c3 organization, invites young schoolgirls from all over the world to learn and apply skills needed to solve real-world problems through technology. 

Through this program, which started in 2010, girls from the ages of 10 to 18 get to learn to identify problems in their respective communities and create mobile app solutions to address those challenges. They also learn how to pitch their ideas and translate them into fully launched businesses. Since 2010, with the help of volunteer mentors, more than 10,000 girls from 78 countries have produced mobile “start- ups” that have helped address problems in local and global communities the world over. The program is aimed at creating a new generation of women who are not just consumers of technology, but creators and innovators.