Nigeria’s Aisha Raheem emerges runner-up in Africa prize for engineering innovation

A Nigerian, Aisha Raheem, has emerged a runner-up at year’s Royal Academy of Engineering Africa prize for engineering innovation, winning $13,000 for her efforts. Raheem emerged tops with her, Farmz2U, a digital platform which provides farmers with data to improve their efficiency. Farmz2U aims to radically improve food production and incomes by bringing precision farming to this region via the mobile phone. In a pilot it has increased yield by 20%, more than doubled annual farm sales per farmer and created jobs for agricultural students. Two other runners-up – Dr William Wasswa and David Tusubira both from Uganda – also received $13,000. Wasswa’s invention, a low-cost digital microscope, speeds up cervical cancer screening while Tusubira devised a system that manages off-grid power grids by monitoring the condition of solar arrays. “Fifteen shortlisted Africa Prize entrepreneurs, from six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, received eight months of training and mentoring, during which they developed their business plans and learned to market their innovations,” the academy said in a statement. An Ivorian woman, Charlette N’Guessan,  won the competition with her Bace API. The 26-year-old technology entrepreneur is the first woman to win the highly coveted prize. Bace API uses facial recognition and artificial intelligence to verify identities remotely, the academy said. Bace API takes live images or short videos recorded on phone cameras to detect whether the image is of a real person or a photo of an existing image. It is aimed at institutions that rely on identity verification. Two financial institutions are already using the software to verify customers’ identities, the academy said. N’Guessan won £25,000 ($33,000) for the top prize. The winner was voted for by a live audience during a virtual awards ceremony held on Thursday where four finalists delivered presentations.