By Pascal Oparada
A team of Nigerian teenage girls have developed an app to detect fake pharmaceutical products which won them the top spot at Technovation at Silicon Valley.
The team beat teams from the United States of America (USA), Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan and China to win the 2018 Technovation world pitch junior division in San Francisco, USA.
The team Save-A-Soul from Nigeria developed a mobile application called ‘FD Detector’ to tackle the problem of fake pharmaceutical products in the country.
The young Nigerian girls were selected from 2,000 mobile app developers to represent Africa at the world pitch.
This is the first time a Junior Nigerian team will emerge among the finalists to visit Silicon Valley and the Nigerian teenage girls will be pitching their app to investors in Silicon Valley, California.
Technovation is a program that invites girls to identify a problem in their communities and then challenge them to solve them by developing apps.
According to Team Save-A-Soul, Nigeria has one of the largest markets for fake drugs. The teenage girls from Anambra State plan to partner with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), using the app, to tackle this challenge.
The team, on Thursday night, came first at the finals after facing judges from around the world.