From left: Betty Mwangi-Thuo, Ory Okolloh and Isis Nyong’o. FILE
A Johannesburg-based online news firm has named three Kenyans among Africa’s 20 most influential women in technology this year for guiding products such as M-Pesa.
IT News Africa has feted Betty Mwangi-Thuo, Safaricom’s general manager of financial services; Isis Nyong’o, former vice president for Africa for InMobi — the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network; and Ory Okolloh, formerly a Google executive and now director at investment firm Omidyar Network.
The Johannesburg-based firm honoured the three together with 17 others from Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana for deepening ICT development in the continent.
“Each year South Africa celebrates National Women’s Day set aside to pay tribute to women in South Africa and their role in development in the country. IT News Africa celebrated the day by listing and paying tribute to 20 women in the continent who have significantly contributed to the development in Information Technology,” said the firm in a statement.
Ms Mwangi-Thuo has been in charge of M-Pesa since its launch in Kenya in 2007 and has seen the iconic mobile money transfer service grow from serving 7.3 million subscribers in 2009 to 15.3 million in March 2013, increasing its revenue from Sh2.93 billion to Sh10.3 billion over the period.
The mobile money transfer service, which started as a platform to send money from one person to another, has evolved and is now used for bill, schools fees and rent settlement.
Since its inception, M-Pesa has won several global awards such as the Best Mobile Money transfer service at the Global Mobile Awards.
Ushahidi, a company co-founded by Ms Okolloh, also catapulted Kenya to global fame for pioneering a software that was used to monitor elections in Kenya, Mexico and India, track violence in eastern Congo and map the post-earthquake crisis in Haiti.
Prior to the stint at Ushahidi Ms Okolloh founded Mzalendo, a website that helps Kenya’s voters to keep track of the activities of their representatives in Parliament. The platform closely monitors and analyses Bills, speeches, and every MPs’ participation, hence promoting transparency and accountability.
Ms Okolloh quit Ushahidi in 2011 to join Google as policy manager for Africa and later left the Internet giant in April to join philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network.
Ms Nyong’o has also made a mark in the continent’s technology scene. She now refers to herself as a tech entrepreneur after quit InMobi in January.
The holder of degrees from Stanford and Harvard and has previously worked in senior management positions at MyJobsEye (Kenya’s pioneer jobs website), MTV, and most recently, Google.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
