Jamila Abbas

Jamila Abbas (Born 1984) is a computer scientist, software engineer, businesswoman and entrepreneur in Kenya. She is the co-founder and chief executive officer of MFarm Kenya Limited, an internet-based organisation that helps farmers find the best farm implements, seeds, access to weather reports and market information. This ingenious innovation won different awards including the praise of the US president Barack Obama during his visit to Kenya in June, 2015. Jamila is an internationally recognized techpreneur. She received many accolades including 2015 New African Woman women of the year,Forbes 10 Female Tech Founders to Watch and 20 Young Power Women in Africa,Quartz’s 30 African Innovators as well as 2015 100 most influential Africans.

Quotes

• My vision of the BFF is that we will enter into a powerful sea of Black feminists in all our diversities and bathe in an amazing journey of learning, sharing and exchanging together. I feel that the BFF gives a space for me to be able to express my ideas, myself and share my feelings as a Black girl and to hear from people about their perspectives on feminism and on being Black. I am excited to learn about different movements and how they have impact. The wide group of generations at the BFF is important not only to learn about how different times bring different circumstances and how we each react to different moments but also for us young feminists to hear how older Black feminists see the situation now. To me, the strength of the BFF will be in its diversity amongst our commonality.[1]

• It’s shown over and over again that when girls are educated, they give back to their families.[2]

• That is what inspires me. The more I knew that there are still people living in the situation I lived in, the more persistent I became. [3]

• If you think this domain is for men, then too bad for you, It’s actually the best time to be a woman in technology.[4]

• We’re not just women in technology—we’re people who are making a difference in the world.[5]

• I’ve always been passionate about empowering people. I grew up in a place where accessing information was almost impossible, a place that almost everyone has neglected. So I grew up knowing that someone has to make a difference, to go out and get the skills to bring change to the place where I was born. [6]

• Information alone isn’t enough. Information needs execution – without that you’re not changing anyone’s life.[7]

• It’s so exciting, the little effort you put into technology, and how it can change people’s lives. The beauty of it is that you can do whatever you have to do anywhere and anytime. As a technologist, you can come up with something that touches a lot of people’s lives.[8]

• “We might not be able to solve all the problems the farmers have […] but what we have been able to do is provide a holistic solution from the time of planting to the time of selling and taking it to the market, one text at a time, one farmer at a time.”[9]

• Information has to be actionable for it to make sense for the farmers who are going to benefit from it[10]