Today, we live in an era vastly different from any other time in human history which has largely been driven by the advent of modern technology. Technology has democratized information and empowered demographics previously left in the shadows. Above all, tech in this era has given women at large a voice that was previously shuttered and ignored. This allows women across the world and especially in Africa, to create impact and exercise influence like never before.

Below we listed 6 women who resemble this new empowered cohort!

Natalie Bitature – Musana Carts, Kampala, Uganda

Musana Carts has used frugal innovation to develop environmentally friendly, solar-powered vending carts. With a price point of $400, each Musana Cart saves 3,000 tons of carbon emissions and improves the health of cities by eliminating pollution from charcoal and kerosene stoves.

Ernestina Appiah, Ghana Code Club, Accra, Ghana

Ernestina Appiah is a 38 year-old social entrepreneur and the founder of the Ghana Code Club an after school activity program being organized in all basic schools in Ghana for children between the ages of 9-18. The NGO works with ICT teachers from each school by creating projects and training them to meet goals and objectives. These projects teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites. Ernestina was listed on BBC inspirational women for 2015. She worked as a secretary for an IT firm and that is where her love for IT began. With a small sum of money and resilience Ernestina decided to get in touch with a web designer who introduced her to basics of HTML from there the rest was history.

Mathebe Molise, Beautyon TApp, South Africa

Mathebe is the founder and CEO of BeautyonTApp an application that enables individuals to find beauty services and products in their area. The application seeks to empower skilled individuals with beauty businesses who may not have the capital or know how to grow their operations. Mathebe is a qualified Charted Accountant and served as a committee member on the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA) Power Tea committee from 2013 to 2015. Mathebe was recently invited to represent AWCA on the SAICA Legal and Compliance Committee as of May 2015 and currently serves this committee.

DR. Cho Mbogo, Kenya

Dr. Cho graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town in December 2015. She contributes to IT through academia, her research focuses on supporting learners from resource-constrained environments, to learn programming on their mobile phones. She was a recipient of the Schlumberger Faculty for the Future award in 2015 and was also selected as one of 200 young researchers worldwide in Mathematics and Computer Science. Dr. Cho was also one of the winners of the 2014 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.

Nneka Offor, SkillBoox, Nigeria

Nneka Offor is the founder of SkillBoox; an online learning marketplace that is focused on creating courses for personal, professional and employ-ability skills development. With the emergence of Mobile Learning Technology (MLT), SkillBoox addresses the need for improved performance by providing on-the-go affordable, effective and self-paced eLearning. Prior to SkillBoox, She worked as a Business Development Officer in a facility management company where she participated actively as projects team member to improve efficiency, reduce costs and assist in improvement of services through customer experiences.

Lilian Makoi Rabi, biMAFYA, Tanzania

bimaAFYA offers mobile micro-health insurance for the low income and informal class, enhancing healthcare services by drastically reducing costs with its completely mobile, paperless solutions. bimaAFYA plans to expand to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana by 2017.

Women like these will help foster the next innovations, drive productivity and embolden a new generations of young bright minds, Ensuring a sound future for Africa.