Women in FinTech Initiative

Women In FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator

Now in its fourth season, the Women in FinTech hackathon, Summit, and incubators are essential tools for closing the gender gap in DFS. It is timely work since, in 2021, less than 1% of foreign funding to Africa went to women-led enterprises. We also promote real-time digital payment platforms that enable frictionless service delivery and offer low-cost transactions between individual users, Digital Financial Services Providers (DFSPs), banks, etc.

The Women in FinTech Hackathon is a powerful platform designed to work with women innovators and women-led FinTech companies to develop proof-of-concepts (POCs) and solutions that improve the lives of women and men. Our main objective is to generate high-value actionable business ideas and product concepts while also fostering an innovation culture that encourages idea-sharing, effective collaboration, and creativity towards a shared goal among women innovators, developers, and women-led FinTechs.

HiPipo is committed to empowering women with technological productive assets, knowledge, and skills to develop innovative financial services that extend access to the poor. We provide free consultancy services to banks and mobile network operators (MNOs) developing digital financial services for women. We believe that leadership is a powerful expression of agency, and as such, we work with women and girls to lead and inspire social change, effectively participate in technology, and improve the status of other women and girls as well as themselves.

The hackathon structure involves a 14-day virtual and face-to-face marathon with 20+ women-led teams, comprising women FinTechs and women developer teams, mentors from MNOs, banks, RSPs, DRSPs, and facilitators. We also offer physical and remote engagements to enable women from different parts of the continent to participate. Our goal is to introduce and onboard women FinTechs to new and emerging innovative tools and networks such as the Level One Project, Mojaloop OSS, and its Community. The participants are enabled to produce demo POCs for women using Open Source Software test tools and get women-developed products adapted by mobile network operators, banks, or remittance services providers.

Join us today and be part of the solution to improving the lives of women across the continent through FinTech innovation.