Global Success for Irish Teens
The inspirational women behind the award-winning Memory Haven App
Three Irish teenagers won the top prize in a prestigious global technology competition last year with an app designed to help people impacted by dementia. Supported by their mentor, Evelyn Nomayo, these young women overcame setbacks, obstacles and abuse with vision, tenacity and faith. VOX magazine editor Ruth Garvey-Williams spoke with Evelyn to find out more.
(From the April - June 2021 issue of VOX)
Evelyn Nomayo is a PhD research fellow at Trinity College Dublin and an IT consultant and developer who completed her Masters in Computer Science at UCD. She is also a woman of faith and pours hours of time and energy into her non-profit organisation Phase Innovate, dedicated to encouraging young women into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.
“My motivation comes from being in the tech space where there are so few women. You encounter prejudice being a female in STEM fields, while studying or in the workplace,” Evelyn said. “One of my psychology professors commented that when there are very few [women] in a particular field then it looks odd or strange; when you have more, then it becomes normal and the prejudice begins to disappear.”
“It puts a smile on my face when I see the girls I work with and see how their lives are transformed.”
Looking for ways to encourage more women to get involved, Evelyn began a mentoring programme to help young women between the ages of 11 and 18. “It puts a smile on my face when I see the girls I work with and see how their lives are transformed. I’m passionate about this and it gives me joy. A number of years ago I had a brain haemorrhage and I was in hospital. When I recovered, I knew God had a purpose for my life. He is my rock!” she said. “Every year, I recruit new girls to prepare them for the Technovation competition.”
The international contest challenges teams of young people from across the world to identify a social problem and to develop an app to address the problem. Six of Evelyn’s teams entered the 2020 competition and the “Memory Haven” team won first prize at the Technovation World Summit.
Memory Haven
Choosing to enter the 2020 competition took courage and faith for Rachael Akano (15), Margaret Akano (17) and Joy Njekwe (17) from Drogheda.
“I remember when we first got involved with Technovation, this particular team put in a lot of work but did not get shortlisted. When I called them for a second time and invited them to enter, I know it took a lot for them to try again,” Evelyn said. “They did not give up because they know we are not doing this on our own. We want to change the world and because these girls are Christians, they know they can do that through the power of God. They know who they are in Christ.”
The competition involves hours of work from research and developing a business plan to creating and testing an app. Inspired by the death of Evelyn’s beloved mother with dementia, Rachel, Margaret and Joy considered how technology could help address some of the challenges faced by dementia sufferers and their families.
“Memory Haven includes a face recognition feature which allows people to identify their friends and families using artificial intelligence, voice and face recognition technology. There are settings to upload, receive and share photos that can be played back as a slide show, a reminder alert that allows you to set tasks for the day and an alarm to remind care givers of such task (for example medication time),” the young women explained.
The app allows a client’s contacts to be centrally located in case of emergency and also includes fun puzzle games to improve cognitive abilities and delay the effects of dementia. One unique feature is a playlist function.
“We discovered that musical memories are undamaged by dementia. The right playlist can penetrate the deepest form of dementia, bringing comfort,” Evelyn explained.
Using facial recognition, the app can detect the person’s mood and play music for them. For example, if the person is feeling sad, the app will play music to cheer them up.
For the 2020 Technovation competition, 5,400 students from 62 countries created more than 1,500 mobile apps addressing problems ranging from Covid-19 to climate change. Eventually, the entrants were whittled down to just 10 regional winners – five in the senior division and five in the junior division. As the only European team shortlisted, the Memory Haven team won the top prize in the senior division, beating strong contenders from New Zealand, America and Brazil.
They didn’t give up
In the aftermath to their outstanding success, the Irish-Nigerian girls received messages of congratulations from across the country as people celebrated their win for Ireland. But they were also subjected to a barrage of racial abuse on social media.
“We had worked so hard and to have people trash us, not because of the app but because of the colour of our skin, was a shock.”
“We had worked so hard and to have people trash us, not because of the app but because of the colour of our skin, was a shock,” one of the girls said. “Personally it was the first time I had ever experienced anything like this and it surprised me that people would even be thinking this way. At the same time, I felt sad for them that they put so much effort into insulting teenagers on the Internet.”
While these resilient young women have had to learn to ignore the hate that was directed at them, Evelyn believes it is vital for the Christian community to speak up. “When it comes to racism, I feel a lot of Christians stay quiet but this is not the way things should be. We cannot just accept the status quo. If you see something that is wrong, then you should speak out.
“Thankfully the girls are Christians and their parents are strong believers as well. That helped them not to get down when people were being racist towards them. That is what being a woman of faith empowers you to do - to see the bright side of things. They didn’t give up,” Evelyn said.
Now in the final stage of refinement, the Memory Haven app will be launched later this year. “For the competition, we had to create a viable product but since then it has gone through a lot of testing with potential users. We’ve been working with doctors and hospitals to see how they can use the app and we hope to announce the release very soon.”
Recently marking the anniversary of her mum’s death, Evelyn knows how essential it is to create time for what is important. “My lasting memory of my mum is her dancing,” Evelyn smiled. “She was a very strong woman. She didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth. She inspired me because of her tenacity. When we discovered that she had dementia, it was painful. I wish she were still around to make use of the app.
“We are all busy. But we can all make time to build someone else up. It will put a smile on your own face too,” she said.
Find out more about Phase Innovate at www.phaseinnovate.com.
