Meaza Taddese

Ethiopian tech entrepreneur who created an app empowering rural women through digital literacy

Meaza Taddese is a visionary software engineer and entrepreneur from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 2021, she launched WomenConnect, an innovative mobile app designed to bridge the digital divide for rural Ethiopian women. This platform provides free access to financial literacy courses, health information, agricultural market updates, and connects users with local microfinance institutions. By 2023, the app had reached over 500,000 users across 14 regions, earning her the African Innovation Prize and a TEDx invitation (watch her talk here).

Taddese's work addresses three critical challenges: gender inequality, economic exclusion, and lack of digital access. Her project methodology involves training local women as community tech ambassadors, creating multiplier effects. A 2024 UN Women report highlighted her model as a replicable solution for sub-Saharan Africa, where only 24% of rural women have internet access.

Her journey began with organizing informal tech workshops in her village while studying computer science at Addis Ababa University. The story of her early struggles inspires many young African innovators. In 2025, she partnered with Kenya's Safaricom to expand services into East Africa, proving the scalability of her vision. Critics initially doubted the feasibility of rural smartphone penetration, but Taddese's team developed offline-compatible features using Kivy framework to ensure functionality in low-connectivity areas.