Girls take over in #Niger
One day with Salissou Hassane Latifa is enough to realize that every single girl has the right to have every skill available to succeed.
Today's generation of girls are preparing to enter a world of work that is being transformed by innovation and automation.
One day with Salissou Hassane Latifa is enough to realize that every single girl has the right to have every skill available to succeed.
Latifa, 23, Niger, is a Master’s student in Software Engineering at the Higher School of Telecommunications in Niamey. She started and currently runs her own start-up called, InnovELLE, which focuses on web development, social ICT tools, girls empowerment, and trainings for the vulnerable children.
She is the latest Ms Geek Africa winner - 2018. Her winning design is an app that helps communication between people caring for accident victims and the emergency services, and allows medical staff to advise on basic first aid before they arrive at the scene. The international event, open to girls and women aged 13 to 25, encourages contestants to use technology to solve everyday problems in their communities.
My passion is always to use the power of ICT to improve the lives of Niger's people
Born in Niamey, she always ‘wanted to focus her career on implementing new ideas related to ICT that can create positive impact on societies’. ‘Although I started studying pharmacy, my passion and dream were always to use the power of ICT to improve the lives of Niger's people. So, I decided to study for an university degree on ICT to develop my skills and work on my talent for technological innovation in Niger’ she affirms.
Latifa was conscious of the amount of lives lost in preventable accidents in Niamey so she decided to start putting in practice her idea. ‘In 2017, I applied to the E-Takara contest, a national competition for digital young talents that make ICTs accessible to every Nigerien. Then I won the first price, being the only girl among the competitors. Yap!’
Afterward, she did an internship at the Protection Civil Services in Niamey and she ‘realized that the emergency teams faced big challenges to respond the calls on time and to provide useful information on how to treat the victims’ she says.
She decided to develop her own application giving the local population access to real-time communication with the Protection Civil Services using their phones.
The users may take a photo of the accident and send it in real time to the Emergencies Response web application. The app has proved to be able to reduce by double the time of response thanks to a GPS tracker and it allows the protection team to provide the witness with real-time audios and images to treat the victims.
Latifa is a girl leader on her way to be a real change maker. A symbol and example for other girls in Niger and Africa using ICTs from a young age as an essential core skill for human development. She advocates for opening new opportunities to other girls and young talents in Niger that lack of capacity, resources, and aspirations to reach their full potential.
Latifa affirms that, despite the progress, she still needs more support of partners and organization to improve her skills and keep following her dream: make her application available worldwide to create effective emergency preparedness and response to human fatalities.
