5 Nigerian Girls Compete at the Technovation Awards Finals for Developing Handsout, an Educational App

Brain Squad, a group of 10 and 11-year-old girls from Nigeria who developed an educational app have reached the final 10 of the Technovation People’s Choice Awards being held at the Silicon Valley.

The members of the Brain Squad Ayomikun Ariyo, Ivana Mordi, Jadesola Kassim, Munachiso Chigbo and Pandora Onyedire are 6^th graders from Standard Bearers School in Lagos, Nigeria.

The girls developed a unique educational app called Handsout. The app was designed to provide a platform for the world to donate money and other valuables towards the education of less privileged children within Nigeria.

In their pitch videos, the young girls explained why they were inspired to develop this specific app.

According to them, the tragic collapse of a Primary School building in Lagos early in 2019 played a huge role in their choice of app. They figured that with a platform like Handsout, the surviving kids can be given hope.

On 16^th of march 2019 the tragic news of a building which had a primary school within at Itafaji Lagos collapsed. Many children died and others were injured. The community was thrown into morning and the surviving children can’t understand why friends and relatives had to die. They need hope.”

Brain Squad

While this incident was the catalyst, their app simply wants to play a role in helping more children access education.

According to UNICEF, in Nigeria over 10.5 million children are not in school. This reflects the fact that across the country less privileged children are at risk of losing out on education.

Handsout, according to Brain Squad, is an avenue for donors to reach out and help one child at a time.

The group believes primary school education is supposed to be free. And so, they will partner with Stanbic IBTC Bank to raise trust funds for all the monetary donations made to them.

According to the team, funds raised via the app will be managed by their alumni group.

Oversight for how its expended will be handled by our alumni group and Stanbic IBTC Fund managers will dispense. 

Brain Squad

The problems Handsout was developed to solve are significant in Nigeria. And thanks to the young developers, a Nigeria where all children will go to school regardless of their class backgrounds may just be possible.

Brain Squad is currently competing with team Uproot from the USA, team LPSN from Spain and other finalists for Technovation People’s Choice Awards for girls. It is the only African team left in the competition.

You can click here to vote for them.