Kenyan girls vie for $15,000 Google prize for app to end female genital mutilation
Nairobi — Animated chatter spills out from a corner of technology giant Google’s Nairobi offices as five Kenyan schoolgirls discuss their upcoming trip to California, where they hope to win $15,000 for I-cut, an app to end female genital mutilation (FGM).The five teenagers, aged 15-17 years, are the only Africans selected to take part in this year’s international Technovation competition, where girls develop mobile apps to end problems in their communities."FGM is a big problem affecting girls worldwide and it is a problem we want to solve," Stacy Owino told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, during a break from boarding school before flying to the US on August 6."This whole experience will change our lives. Whether we win or not, our perspective of the world and the possibilities it has will change for the better."The five girls from Kenya’s western city of Kisumu call themselves "the restorers", because they want to "restore hope to hopeless girls", said Synthia Otieno, one of the te...
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