Ghana’s Charlette N’Guessan wins the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation Award

The Africa Prize for Engineering innovation, given that its beginning in 2014, has grown to become engineering development’s greatest dedicated prize in Africa. The recently held 2020 edition of the reward was won by Ghana’s Charlette N’Guessan– making the 26-year tech business owner based in Ghana the first female to win the coveted Africa Prize for Engineering innovation from the Royal Academy for Engineering Development.

Charlette N’Guessan likewise functioned as the first individual based in Ghana to win the prize, though she is from Cote d’Ivoire. The reward was won with BACE API, a software application established by Charlette and her group which uses facial acknowledgment and synthetic intelligence to from another location validate identities. The advanced identity verification software application is tailormade for the identity verification needs of financial institutions and other industries who utilize such security details.

With concerns to its use, BACE API software application can be incorporated into existing apps and systems. The software does not need any unique hardware as it uses the integrated electronic cameras of phones and computer systems. In addition, unlike other worldwide AI systems, BACE API has actually been specifically made to recognize Africans.

One other unique feature of the prize-winning BACE API software is that it can be utilized to detect whether an image is of a genuine person or a photo of an existing image. The software application can quickly find that with cellphone shots of live images and brief videos, which were some of the primary factors to Charlette’s win.

According to Charlette N’Guessan and her co-founders, BACE API software was established after their research study revealed that Ghana’s banks have a major problem with identity fraud and cybercrime. For that reason, after developing the software application in 2018, they partnered with an information controller to get access to Ghanaian passports and other ID documents to aid the software’s confirmation process.

Speaking of the success story of the BACE API, it is presently being used by 2 banks in Ghana and has actually also proven valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it ended up being the only safe option to the usual in-person verification process. Thanks to the new software application, companies had the ability to get rid of in-person confirmations like the fingerprint and individual looks, replacing them with BACE API’s brand-new method of confirming every consumer or worker without the need to fulfill them face to face.

This year’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation

This year’s edition of the Africa Prize for Engineering was held virtually on September 3, 2020, where four finalists provided their discussions before the Africa Prize judges. The decision of the winner was no taken by only the judges as there was a live audience, who likewise signed up with the ballot procedure, which saw Charlette N’Guessan emerge the winner of the first prize.

For emerging the winner of the most appealing engineering development, Charlette N’Guessan took home a prize of ₤ 25000 or GHC 192,000 cedi equivalent. Speaking of other benefits of the Africa Reward for Engineering Innovation, she and her team exposed that its mentorship and training helped them focus more on their service development. They were likewise able to sign collaborations with local banks, improve the precision model and lower the confirmation time of their software application.

Charlette N’Guessan even more mentioned that “Belonging to the Africa Reward has actually provided us such self-confidence. We focus on Africa since we desire to make certain BACE API is used by our individuals and works for them. We are so grateful to the Academy, and can not wait to take our development to new heights.” She included.

The Africa Reward for Engineering Development was established in 2014 by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and has been set out to find the most promising engineering entrepreneurs. This year’s edition happens to be its sixth-year running and entries for its next edition is currently still open for individuals and groups in Africa with engineering developments.

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