The victorious SBS girls
Sequel to the celebrated Junior Division Global 2018 Technovation Challenge win by by Nigeria, another set of young girls from Standard Bearers School (SBS) Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria, has made the country proud by emerging victorious at the Zonal Pitch in the same category of the challenge held at the prestigious Lagos Business School (LBS) taking them into the semi-final round.These young girls are aged 10 -11 years
The BrainSquad team made of Ivana Mordi, Munachi Chigbo, Jadesola Kassim, Ayomikun Ariyo and Pandora Onyedire, after research, came up with an idea of building a fund-raising app called Handsout to help less privileged children go to school and get a good education. Their studies showed that over 10 million children are out of school in Nigeria, with problems mainly from poverty. The inspiration behind creating Handsout was the collapse of the school at Itafaji, Lagos and also the viral online news of Success Adegho who was sent out of school because her parents could not pay her school fees.
BrainSquad won and are now waiting for the final selection of teams in Africa as the judges in Silicon Valley decide which teams will go on to represent the continent at the finals later this year. While they are waiting, they have used the time to improve on their app following their judges’ advice, to finalize the launch of Handsout.
BrainSquad team leaders, Munachi Chigbo and Jadesola Kassim stated: “The aim of Handsout is to create a way for organisations, friends and well-meaning people all over the world to donate funds for the purpose of paying the school fees of less privileged Nigerian children who desire to go to school but cannot afford to. For people who want to help support by giving things like school shoes, school bags, stationery and library books they are welcome and can do so through the app which our team developed”.
SBS proprietress, Mrs. Modupe Adeyinka-Oni expressed joy over the pupils’ victory.
Said she: “We are very pleased our pupils have been able to win the Zonal Pitch and are encouraged with the process so far seeing that it is in line with our school’s philosophy of embracing 21st century learning with technology being the cornerstone.
“The children have shown that they can stand shoulder to shoulder with their peers worldwide and tackle global problems head-on, an integral trait for developing the leaders of tomorrow which we lay emphasis on in SBS.
“The Nigerian 2018 winners in the Junior category called Team ‘Save-A-Soul” developed a mobile application called ‘FD Detector’ to tackle the problem of fake drugs in the country. They are also a beacon of hope and encouragement to our team ‘BrainSquad’ and together, show the world that Africa too, has the best and brightest. The FD Detector team were selected from over 2,000 mobile app developers to represent Africa at the world pitch and God willing, we see Brainsquad doing the same. Our prayers continue to ensure this happens”.
Mrs. Adeyinka-Oni further stated that “BrainSquad wass partnering with Stanbic IBTC Bank Trustees to open a trust to handle all cash donations and were looking to partnering with organizations and foundations to select the recipients as well as logistic companies to assist with transportation of any non-cash donations to designated communities.
Handsout is a hub for children by children where donors’ funds can be directed to the children who need it, using charities like International Women’s Society (IWS) and Slum2School. Credible NGOs who work directly with children and orphanages around Nigeria are expected to apply on behalf of the children so people who need the funds are reached. Handsout will be readily available shortly on Google play store to be downloaded for free and the process to sync the app with the bank’s account to enable it receive funds.’
It is estimated that if only 100,000 people donate a minimum of N1,000 each every month, they will get a great deal of children off the streets and back in schools. The plan is to support children in primary and secondary schools across Nigeria with the maximum scholarship at N50,000 per term. This could be less, depending on the average fees obtainable in each region.
The Technovation Challenge, sponsored by Microsoft encourages girls to develop an app that will solve real world global problems through technology. From there they become Tech Entrepreneurs and leaders. In 2018, nearly 20,000 girls globally, participated in building apps and starting businesses that solved pressing problems in their communities such as gender violence, autism, speech disabilities and gender inequality. The BrainSquad app, irrespective of the outcomes of the judges will be launched in Nigeria. Standard Bearers School, on behalf of BrainSquad, are looking to partner with other well-meaning organizations who can join us to rally support for the app and together, we can a change the lives of many Nigerian children particularly the girl child.
