Five Kenyan schoolgirls are set to fly to Google’s headquarters in California anticipating winning $15,000 (sh1.5 million) for innovating I-cut, an app to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The app connects girls at risk of FGM with rescue centres. It also offers legal and medical help to those who have been cut.
The five aged between 15 and 17 years are the only Africans who have been selected to take part in Google’s 2017 international Technovation competition.
Google, Verizon and the United Nations have sponsored Technovation with an aim to sharpen tech skills in girls.
The annual competition rewards girls who develop mobile apps aimed at solving challenges within their communities.
And for Stacy Owino, one of the five Kenyan girls set to fly to California, I-cut is simply a technological way to fight FGM, she told Reuters in Nairobi’s Google office.
“FGM is a big problem affecting girls worldwide and it is a problem we want to solve,” said Stacy ahead of her flight to US on Aug 6.
“This whole experience will change our lives. Whether we win or not, our perspective of the world and the possibilities it has will change for the better,” she said.
Another member of the five, Cynthia Otieno said their purpose is to “restore hope to hopeless girls.”
The five hail from Kenya’s lake region, Kisumu.
Purity Achieng, another member of the five said hr drive to innovate the app was informed by the need to save girls from the pain and suffering they undergo.
She says though her community does not practice FGM, she lost a friend to the archaic tradition.
“We were very close but after she was cut she never came back to school. She was among the smartest girls I knew.”
I-cut has a simple user interface. It has five buttons each sending a specific command.
The buttons represent help, rescue, report, information on FGM, donate and feedback.
