Butterfly Techies

Our solution as butterfly techies is committed to solving 3 United nations sustainable goals which are: 

1.No poverty

We aim to upskill and reskill women and girls to be self  reliant through tech skills 

2.Gender Equality

We seek to close the current gender inequality disparity between women and men in marginalized communities.

3.Decent work and economic growth

We seek to tap into the digital economy to create decent work for women and girls hence empowering them economically.

Our solution labelled Digital literacy 101 is an innovative solution designed and curated to address the current challenges facing marginalized communities in Arid and Semi Arid(ASAL) Counties in Kenya through capacity building trainings and provision of fully fledged digital tech spaces facilities in the localities convenient to our target communities.

Lastly our solution has already been piloted in one County and if scaled the impact will be life changing to other communities globally.

According to Microsoft research, global unemployment in 2020 may reach a quarter of a billion people. It’s a staggering number. Youth unemployment in Kenya currently stands at 7.27% as at 2020; according to statista.com. This has raised concerns not only to the public sector but also the private sector and non-profit organizations like us as well. We therefore came up with innovative solutions to reach and up skill approximately 1100 women and girls from marginalized communities for not only in-demand tech careers but also address economic disparities for women and girls; something currently not addressed in Kenya. 

As often the case, the biggest brunt of this downturn is being borne by those with lower educational attainment, people with disabilities, women, younger workers, and individuals who have less formal education. This impact in marginalized communities in Kenya is really concerning.

Digital Inclusion of  women and girls from marginalized communities in Kenya with tech skills for gig-economy and future of work is tech-based solution that address the current challenges being faced by women and girls from marginalized communities in Kenya. The solutions focus on digital literacy capacity building trainings and also enables provision of nesessary tools and support in leveraging on digital economy sector for economic empowerment, hence self reliance.

The collected data on beneficiaries and targeted groups prompted the curation of our innovation in solving the specific challenges faced by women and girls in marginalized communities which are:

1.Digital inclusivity of women and girls in being drivers of our economy

2.Gender disparity issue

3.Decent work and economic empowerment

Samburu County is majorly a pastoral locality and is divided into 3 sub counties translating to 108 villages respectively, as indicated below. So, we therefore expect the project to directly serve an approximately 1,080 women with the aim of empowering at least 10 women from each village.

Digital inclusion of women and girls from marginalized communities in Arid and Semi Arid Counties in Kenya aligns perfectly to both the challenge and the selected dimensions as it fosters access of the digital economy for all as well as provision of reliable infrastructure, devices, and affordable data plans for all, particularly for those who do not have access in remote and rural areas in Kenya.

We have already piloted our solution in one of the Counties(Samburu County)

The pilot solution was therefore rolled out to a segment of our target groups, hence the affirmation of our selection of growth development stage as we seek to scale  it to other Arid and Semi Arid Counties in Kenya.

Our proposed solution embarrasses outstanding innovation due to its target group(s) (women and girls from ASAL counties, which are all marginalized communities). It also focuses on economic empowerment, which is unheard of in the region since most solution in the region focus on early marriages and FGM which are rampant harmful cultural practices that hinder the girls from advancing their education. The part of the “puzzle” that we complete is once these practices have been delt with, then what? How does that then translate to self-reliance for the girls/women. That is what we aim to address with this proposed solution. 

We are currently serving an approximately 500 women and girls

We project to serve an approximately 1080 and 2200 women and girls in one and five years respectively.

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Janet Silantoi - Founder and Director.

She is a seasoned woman in Technology with over 7 years work experience in different tech roles both in public and private sector in Kenya. She also has an MSc in cyber security from Lancaster University (UK) courtesy of the Chevening scholarship. She has also participated in different exchange programs courtesy of the U.S Embassy i.e., Mandela Washington fellowship 2018 and Techwomen fellowship in 2017. In 2019 she was awarded the Zuri award (STEM Category) in recognition of her contribution to the community through Butterfly Techies in Kenya. In 2020 she was named among the top 50 Women in Cyber Security in Africa.

Denis Leparteleg - Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer. 

He is a proactive Tech-enthusiast with an interest in Data science. He is also a successful, renowned project manager in the private sector, youth leader and a gender equality advocate specifically to women and girls from marginalized communities in Kenya.

Our team has more than 7 years experience in tech as well as a robust skill set ranging from cyber security, data science, project management, hence the team is credible and well suited to implement the solution.

Indeed as an organization we have embraced diversity, equality as well as inclusion.

Our organization has a female founder who comes from the Samburu community, she has experienced first-hand how economic empowerment for women can advance the overall lively hood of the community. Having completed her education through the support of her mother who was the sole bread winner as she finished high school and joined university. She started the organization to empower other women and girls from her community who might not have been lucky as she was to attain good education and have a thriving career in STEM. Echoing the words of Debasish Mridha “By empowering women we empower the nation”.

We as an organization decided to apply to solve for the following reasons

1.Solve a Global challenge in regards to digital inclusion for all

2.To join a powerful network of impact-minded leaders across industries and sectors

3.Acess mentorship, coaching and strategic advice from Solve network experts & partners

4 To make a lasting impact to our communities from the support gained from solve

5.Act as link between various underrepresented groups and communities in leveraging on the digital economy sector in attainment of various development goals

1.Business Model

We would like to have a more rigid business model solution and also guidance in strategy and development.

2.Monitoring and Evaluation

We would like to be mentored in Monitoring and Evaluation industry's best practices in two key areas namely; Data collection & Impact measuring

3.Technology

We also need support in Data analysis tools as well web development support

MIT faculty in finetuning our solution as well as mentorship/consultancy during the solution implementation phase.

We are qualified for this prize as our priority areas of focus is digital literacy as well digital inclusivity of women and girls from marginalized localities in Kenya in being the drivers of our economies. We as organization will use this funding in advancing our outreach scope and more so advocate for digital equity of women and girls in our communities of focus.

we are 100% qualified for the innovation for women prize as our solution focuses on digital literacy trainings and economic empowerment of women and girls  through digital economy (GIG-economy) from marginalized communities in Kenya. We will use this funding to advance our solution to a larger scope and locality so as to increase the list of our beneficiaries.