Senegal’s Jamme Marieme is Promoting Technology and Providing Support for Girls and Women in STEM

Born in Dakar, Senegal, Jamme Marieme epitomizes resilience, perseverance and a will to succeed, braving the odds till the very top by shaping Africa’s Tech revolution.

Jamme went through hardship growing up, considering that she was raised in different foster homes and orphanages. She never really had a formal education until at age 16 when she taught herself how to read and write.

However, she did not allow these circumstances to deter her from helping others, being an autodidact, Jamme taught herself how to code seven programming languages from her local library in Surrey, England.

She honed her skills and developed as a programmer, blogger, tech and education activist, who is best known for her role in promoting technology, good governance, transparency, and a better education standard in Africa.

She founded Spotone Global Solutions in March 2000, as a London based consultancy company that specializes in helping technology companies set a foothold in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The company has supported businesses like; Google, Ernst and Young, The White House, Microsoft, UN Women, Legatum Institute, HSBC Private Banking, The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, The Africa Progress Panel chaired by Kofi Annan, Barack Obama Administration, Unilever, the Argentine Government, and multiple African governments.

Considering the travails she had to go through growing up, Jamme decided to set up Jjiguene Tech Hub in 2012 in Dakar Senegal. The hub is the first women Tech Innovation Network that supports young women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Her quest for women’s empowerment, education, and freedom also pushed her to build a new company iamtheCODE in 2015.

iamtheCODE is the first African-led global movement to mobilize government, the private sector, and philanthropic foundations to advance STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Design) Education. She aims to empower 1 million young women and girls globally to become coders by 2030. This goal will align with the UN 2030 Agenda. iamtheCODE partnered with Alibaba in February 2019 to extend its reach within Africa.

Jamme became a member of Web Foundation in 2017, in a bid to support the Foundation in gender and digital equality. She is also a select committee member and adviser for the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program, a council member on Microsoft 4Afrika and contributor at the Guardian, Huffington Post, the BBC, the Africa Report and CNN.

She is an award-winning Technologist, who was named as 20 youngest powerful women in Africa by Forbes in 2012. She was also named twice as one of the 100 most influential Africans by the African Business Magazine in 2014 and in 2016.

She won the Innovation Award at the Global Goals Award 2017 by UNICEF, the GoalKeeper Award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for her work in advancing the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.

Jamme is a BBC 100 Women nominee, and she was named twice on the UK Powerlist 2017 and 2018 of Britain’s 100 most influential people of African and African Caribbean Heritage.

Every brand, whether a business or a personality has a story, but some have more intriguing stories than others. Jamme’s story is peculiar, she has been a True African Amazon, despite all the hurdles along her journey and is a great inspiration to youth across Africa.