After three months of preparation and intense pitch selection, Team Mafubo have taken home the first prize of $10,000 in Abidjan’s the first gender data competition. The winning project proposed to network maternity wards by allowing medical staff to record data on the available spaces, equipment and support to better monitor pregnant women using a Web application.

Of the 80 teams who entered, 40 were chosen to participate in the semi-finals, and 20 were invited to pitch in the final round. The runners-up in second and third place respectively were Maurice Communications and Larit-LabTIC. Maurice Communications made use of QR codes on jewellery to record and store critical health information for emergency situations, and Larit-LabTIC created a platform to collect anonymous information on gender-based violence to create a map of incidents authorities can use to inform their public awareness campaigns.

TechMousso brings together the tech community with civil society and government actors working towards gender equality to tackle some of the country’s most pressing gender challenges. “Mousso” means “woman” in the local Bambara language. The focus of the competition was to highlight the difficulty in accessing gender data, and promote the implementation and use of open government data to advance gender equality.

Ms Ori Annick Zaui, Mafubo’s team captain said: “We are proud and happy to have participated in this competition that has allowed us to highlight our solution for reducing maternal deaths.”

Nnenna Nwakanma, African Regional Director of the Web Foundation commented: “To correct the inequalities that exist we must know what is happening when and where and to whom. That’s where the data comes in, and how it is going to help us fight for a more equal society. This competition is a first step in raising awareness of the importance of gender data in Cote d’Ivoire.”

The Web Foundation would like to thank the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the independent and innovative development aid organisation of the United States, the the Data2X initiative of the United Nations and the British and American Embassies in Cote d’Ivoire for their support to help make this programme a reality.

You can follow us @webfoundation on Twitter for updates on the winning projects and the programme participants using #TechMousso.