Techie Squad Won Egypt 2030 Hackathon, By Ministry Of Social Solidarity, Pepsico Egypt, UN, RiseUp

Techie Squad, the Egyptian team that came up with a social platform that aims to connect, mentor, and empower women in the Egyptian sports sector, has won Egypt 2030 Hackathon 2018\2019 that took place between 18 and 20th of April, with the aim to tackle gender inequality and hunger in Egypt. 

In the attendance of the Hackathon's partners, PepsiCo Egypt's CEO Mohamed Shelbaya, UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt Richard Dictus, RiseUp's CEO Abdelhameed Sharara, and other prominent figures of the ecosystem, the winning team behind Techie Squad went home with a cheque of EGP 500,000. PepsiCo also promised them a bundle of adequate technical support to help them scale up and bring their idea to life.

Since women in Egypt do not access the same rights as men in the sports sector, Techie Squad thought of creating an application that empowers women in line with Egypt’s 2030 vision and  UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “We did a market research on all the problems that cause gender inequality in Egypt," says Hassan Mostafa, one of the Techie Squad's team members. "The sports sector has appeared as one of the most important sectors that suffer from this problem, therefore we created a social platform to empower women to play sports equally as men.

“Innovation is key to the process of achieving sustainable development. Investment in innovation is therefore not only necessary, but critical to identifying and implementing sustainable solutions to the multidimensional challenges that we face today,” said Richard Dictus, UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt.

Originally launched during RiseUp Summit 2018, Egypt 2030 Hackathon aims to address Egypt’s sustainability challenges through exploring innovative solutions in alignment with Egypt’s 2030 vision and UN SDGs achieving zero hunger and gender equality in the labor market. This comes as part of PepsiCo’s entrepreneurial responsibility, and global strategy "Winning with Purpose." In cooperation with all parties to empower hundreds of young participants through professional workshops provided by UN Egypt. Around 1,000 candidates applied, 100 of whom were shortlisted, and divided into 20 teams holding three to five members each. 

"I am very happy to witness how the Egyptian youth are involved in finding creative solutions addressing the society’s sustainability challenges, thus, strengthening their sense of belonging and encouraging them to integrate their innovative ideas to further develop the Egyptian society as a whole,” says Mohamed Shelbaya PepsiCo Egypt's CEO.

"I would like to share how we think about our commitment to the Egyptian market. We call it creating “shared values”, by linking our strategy to the sustainability of the society around us. This is more than just a slogan, and extends well beyond our contributions to our Egyptian youth with unique opportunities that serve their interest,” he adds. "Our youth, you are the hope of this country and the engine that drives the future. This won't be possible unless every young individual has the opportunity to voice out his/her ideas,” he concludes. 

Building on this, PepsiCo also supports entrepreneurs through numerous initiatives; led by sponsoring RiseUp Egypt Summit for the fifth consecutive year and Falak's demo day creating a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas. Along with sponsoring the 5th annual CSR conference for the second consecutive year and PepsiCo signed a cooperation protocol with the Federation of Egyptian Industries, Alex Bank and other partners providing employment opportunities for youth in rural areas.

You can find more information about the hackathon here.

*The components of this article are sponsored by PepsiCo Egypt.