Sara Ruto

Kenyan tech entrepreneur who pioneered mobile safety solutions for women through her startup M-SAWA

Sara Ruto is a groundbreaking Kenyan tech innovator whose work has revolutionized women's safety in East Africa. Born in Nairobi in 1995, she developed the M-SAWA app while studying computer science at the University of Nairobi. This mobile platform allows women to discreetly report incidents of harassment and violence through encrypted messages, connecting them directly to trusted contacts and legal resources. The app's launch in 2021 marked a pivotal moment in Kenya's digital rights movement, with over 200,000 users registered within its first year. Ruto's work intersects technology and gender equality, earning her recognition as a World Economic Forum Young Leader in 2023. Her TED Talk "Why Kenya's Women Need a Safety App" has garnered over 1.2 million views. Beyond tech development, she founded the Women in Tech Initiative Kenya (WITIK), mentoring over 500 young women annually. Recent collaborations with UN Women have expanded M-SAWA's reach into Uganda and Tanzania, demonstrating her commitment to regional impact. Critics praise her approach for combining grassroots needs with cutting-edge technology, though challenges remain in addressing systemic gender violence through digital means alone. Ruto's vision extends to AI-powered predictive safety analytics, aiming to preemptively identify high-risk areas using machine learning algorithms. Her story is chronicled in the BBC documentary "Sara Ruto: Coding for Safety" and profiled in Forbes Africa's 30 Under 30 list (2022).