“As a child, I had dreams of becoming a rocket scientist but I was told a woman’s place is in the kitchen”, this ambitious, passionate and goal driven change maker didn’t let the a “woman’s place is in the kitchen” stereotype stop her.
She got introduced to computers and developed a strong interest in them, she went ahead to major in computer science at Ashesi University. She worked for a bank till she got overlooked for a deserved promotion then she decided enough was enough; she submitted her letter of resignation and went ahead to start her own company with a laptop in her father’s house.
Today, Regina Agyare is a social entrepreneur and the CEO of Soronko solutions, a company that develops innovative solutions across different channels such as Web, Mobile, POS and ATM to help Small and medium Scale Enterprises in Ghana create visibility and grow their business with technology.
Aside the profit side of her company, she has a non-profit side where she runs her various projects. She is the Co-founder of Tech needs girls, a movement and a mentor ship program which aims to get more girls interested in creating technology. She teaches young girls in junior high and senior high schools how to code, she also gets them interested in pursuing any of the Science,Technology,Engineering and Mathematics( STEM) careers.
She brought on board women already having careers in STEM to mentor the girls. She goes to the schools to organize the workshops for the girls and also runs a special project with a girls’ poetry club in Nima known as achievers’ club. This club was founded by a young girl who run away from her village because she was going to be forced to marry at a young age. Regina meets them every weekend to teach them how to build websites, how to blog, how to building applications, how to write algorithms so they can solve problems and make a living for themselves. She started a blog with them known as http://www.slumvoices.blogspot.com/.
Aside tech needs girl, Regina visits villages to introduce the children in basic schools to STEM and how they can use it to solve some problems peculiar to their society. She was touched by the plight of deaf and mute children and decided to build software for them which converts text and speech to sign language to facilitate their communication. She volunteers as an online mentor and is an Aspen fellow. She believes change is possible, and change starts with one person. She has taken it upon herself to break stereotypes like a woman’s place is in the kitchen and a woman should not go into STEM.
Regina Agyare is a woman who wants to use technology to solve Africa’s problems and change the single story of struggle and hardship. She wants to show the world the success stories coming from Africa.
You can reach Regina Agyare via
ragyare@gmail.com
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This I Know a Ghanaian Article was written and submitted by:
Naa Achere Buxton-Tetteh, a software developer and blogger who works for Nandimobile.
