Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube
A ZIMBABWEAN young woman Blessing Sibanda (24) has been voted second runner-up in the prestigious Miss Geek Africa, a competition co-run by Smart Africa which organises Transform Africa Summit.
Selasi Domi of Ghana is the 2023 Miss Geek Africa champion and she got US$5 000, a certificate, a laptop, smartphone, and Ascend Digital also promised to give her a cash price of US$1 000 in addition and a job opportunity in Accra.
Her winning project was “Kasa-Cash”, an offline system that enables illiterates, physically challenged, unserved and under-served communities to be able to effortlessly perform financial services without third-party assistance.
Lizette Aboue of Benin the 1st runner up and she got US$3 000.
Sibanda was in 3rd place where she won herself US$2 000 prize money.
The winners were announced at the recent TAS in Victoria Falls.
Sibanda, a Mechatronics Engineering graduate from Chinhoyi University of Science and Technology devised a prototype called Solar Data which predicts solar energy.
Mable Chileshe of Zambia was 4th, Clare Kanja of Kenya 5th, Jeniffer Mutamuliza of Rwanda 6th and Saadata Moussa Issa of Niger 7th.
The competition is in its 4th edition and is inspired by Miss Geek Rwanda where Smart Africa is headquartered, aimed at inspiring more girls into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (Stem) by devising solutions to challenges faced in their community and across Africa.
Smart Africa partnered with Girls in ICT Rwanda to spread the competition to member states and so far previous winners are from Kenya, Niger and DRC.
Zimbabwe hosted TAS for the first time outside Rwanda and Sibanda made the country proud by becoming the first to be in top three.
She started working on the prototype in 2018 inspired by electricity challenges not only in her community, but in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa as a whole.
She developed a solution called Solar Data, which predicts solar power output for the future and believes the prototype can contribute to the country’s energy mix and help in planning and net metering.
“It took a lot of time from identifying the problem 2018 and coming up with a solution. The project was inspired by the electricity challenges where I had to endure long hours of blackout during my studies.
“Where I was staying there was a solar system but we could not rely on it because it could go off any time. So I asked myself if there was a way to predict availability of solar so that I could schedule my work,” said Sibanda.
She said the project involves putting together a weather station at a solar power plant, and the weather station has sensors that record weather data and predicts sun availability and in the process showing how much solar energy can be produced.
This is displayed on an LCD which works like a dashboard and is accessible on a phone or computer through an application called Solar Data.
The weather data and predicated and actual power output data is sent on cloud for historic weather data saving where it will be available to researchers, scientists, energy sector players, academic and farmers to know the amount of solar and power that is available.
The sensors record the amount of solar that reaches the system and predictable energy output for each day and the actual power that will be produced.
The system doesn’t store energy, it predicts the amount of solar energy that will be available on a given time and this helps in controlling usage as well as sharing on the grid.
Zimbabwe and the whole of Southern Africa face serious power challenges and such predictions may help preserve and share the little solar energy that is available, Sibanda said.
She said Solar Data can transform the energy sector.
“This is a prototype. I had to do it as a home experience using simple equipment with help from some partners. We are in an era where net metering is crucial and once we know our output and consumption, we can spread the extra energy into the grid and everyone can benefit.
“I look forward to roll it out and I am now targeting large solar plants so that we are able to predict solar output for our country, so in the next five years I see myself being able to predict solar power output and availability for those major solar plants in Zimbabwe.
“As you understand we don’t have that kind of weather data available in Southern Africa so we are harnessing it so that we have big data to predict. It’s still in the implementation stage and we look forward to roll it out,” said Sibanda who is based in Redcliff, Kwekwe.
Sibanda said she is not trying to reinvent the wheel as similar projects have been done elsewhere using satellite sky images to predict weather patterns.
However, she said hers is different and advanced in the sense that it uses artificial intelligence technology.
“This project will help us as a country and industry since we don’t have enough power and endure power cuts. This application will help for planning purposes in that if a power plant owner knows they would produce 200MW the next day, they would know how much excess they can offload into the grid through net metering for the benefit of everyone. It can also help in the health sector as we can plan our surgeries according the available power,” said Sibanda.
Speaking about the prize, she said it is gold for her.
“I am so grateful to have become the second runner up. This is something that I had never imagined and it is still like a dream. I had made progress in terms of identifying a problem and solution when this competition came in 2020 before Covid-19 and I applied.
“It felt great to be selected as a finalist and this is actually gold for me. My message to the girl child out there is to always be hardworking and look for things that can empower you. Go on the internet and get things that can uplift you as a girl child.
Sibanda said she always wanted to be an engineer and Mechatronics Engineering fascinated her when she enrolled for tertiary education.-@ncubeleon
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