Four young Kenyan women are set to showcase their AI-powered fintech innovation on the continental stage after clinching victory at the national round of the Absa Bank Kenya GirlCode Women-in-Tech Hackathon.
Their platform, Jasho-Powering Your Hustle, was designed to support gig economy workers and people living with disabilities, combining real-time expenditure tracking, personalised financial coaching, and advanced fraud prevention.
Team Avytria, composed of women aged 21 to 26, impressed judges with a solution that prioritises accessibility.
Features such as facial recognition and voice commands ensure that the platform caters to a wide spectrum of users, making it one of the most inclusive innovations in this year’s competition.
“This initiative started with a vision to address the underrepresentation of women in the tech space.
This hackathon is giving women the platform to showcase their skills, be innovative and develop real solutions to real problems within their communities,” said Zandile Mkwanazi, CEO and Founder of GirlCode.
The Nairobi edition of the hackathon attracted 112 participants aged 18 to 35, all competing under the theme Future-Proofing Africa: Innovation at the Intersection of FinTech, Cybersecurity, and AI.
Over a rigorous 30-hour challenge, contestants developed solutions aimed at enhancing digital skills, financial inclusion, and cybersecurity across the continent.
Absa Bank Kenya’s Vice President, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs, Charles Wokabi, praised the participants’ creativity and resilience.
“These teams have shown great creativity and problem-solving under very intense conditions.
Each team had an opportunity to pitch their innovative ideas and solutions before a highly experienced panel of judges.
The winners will be provided with hardware and software tools to help advance their skills and support their continued learning and innovation,” he said.
The top three teams will also enter an incubation programme jointly run by the Absa Kenya Foundation and ALX, gaining mentorship, workspace access, and business development guidance to help scale their projects.
The Pan-African winner will receive a grand prize of USD 5,500 (approximately Ksh 700,000).
Judges in Nairobi included leading industry figures such as Muthoni Kanyana, CEO of MK-Africa, Lucy Mbuthia, Country Manager of Women in Tech Kenya, Absa Chief People Officer Mumbi Kahindo, CIO Moses Okundi, and Head of Digital Marketing Seline Awuor.
Team Avytria now prepares to compete against the best from Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana, and Ghana, representing a new wave of female-led innovation driving Kenya’s digital transformation and the broader African tech landscape.
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