Innovation – Celebrations rocked the air as 23-year-old university student Mack Marangu was declared winner of Save the Children’s Digital Innovation Challenge.
This happened during winner announcement ceremony that took place on Friday night in Nairobi.
The youngster now walks away with a cash prize of sh 250,000 and an opportunity to collaborate with Save the Children to customize and scale up his innovation and or get a 12-month fellowship program to develop and implement it even more.
The journalism and mass media communications graduate who is also pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of London emerged victorious after successfully pitching and convincing a group of select judges in the technology, education and climate resilient and livelihoods space, that his innovation was indeed the best.
His innovation dubbed Toto Register, is a digital attendance system that is designed to take the daily attendance of students in Kenya. The system utilizes a mobile app that allows teachers to import student lists, mark attendance, and transmit the data securely to a backend server.
Speaking after he was announced winner, Mack said he was elated by the news.
“I hoped that I would win but never did I think that I would. It is such an honor to have this opportunity to show you what we are doing in Tharaka Nithi to protect children and to ensure they get constant and quality education. It is great to see what my fellow young innovators are doing and how this will have greater impact for children,” said an elated Mack.
Hot on his heels were KCA University student Gift Mumbi who was 1st runner-up for her innovation, Maoni Mtaani, a feedback mechanism system while Sydney Aurah was the 2nd runner-up for his innovation, Mwalimu Smart, a chatbot and SMS-based learning platform targeting children in pastoralist communities. The two will get Ksh. 150,000 and Ksh. 100,000 respectively.
