Impact Stories

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  Fellow(s): Lucy Mutinda

  Country: Kenya

  Region: SSA

  Cohort: 2016

  Project/Action: With lessons from TechWomen fellow holds engineering event

  Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Entrepreneurship, Environmental Sustainability, Professional Growth

  This week, 2016 fellow Lucy Mutinda co-organized the 28th Institution of Engineers of Kenya Conference, a five-day event themed on how engineers are accelerating sustainable economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Lucy is the CEO and founder of Ecocycle, a company that provides zero-waste products and services. Founded in 2014, Ecocycle turns sewage into clean water, installs water recycling machines in homes and hotels throughout Kenya and promotes water re-use and environmental conservation. She is also the founder of Envirologic, a company that offers consulting services as well as a sustainable dry toilet system that functions without water or chemicals. Lucy serves as the first vice president of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya (IEK), and leads publicity, branding and marketing of all IEK partnerships and events. As she leverages social media to spread awareness about engineering in Kenya, Lucy is using skills she learned from TechWomen 2016: “I acquired my social media skills at the training that was delivered at Autodesk on the power of social media,” she said. “I have used those skills for my individual brand, my company and now IEK.”​

  Report Date: 11/15/21

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  Fellow(s): Heba El Houjairy

  Country: Lebanon

  Region: MENA

  Cohort: 2019

  Project/Action: Fellow’s startup selected for 2021 TinySeed Accelerator

  Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019 fellow Heba El Houjairy noticed that companies were rapidly moving their business operations to the cloud without properly protecting themselves from hazardous security threats. As a response, she co-founded Skysnag, a startup that uses proprietary technology to protect organizations against email impersonation, one of the most dangerous forms of phishing attacks. Since the product launched, Skysnag has blocked more than one million impersonation threats.
  This month, U.S.-based accelerator TinySeed accepted SkySnag for its Fall 2021 batch, making SkySnag the only selected team with both founders outside the U.S. During the one-year program, Heba and her co-founder will learn to grow their business through mentorship, networking opportunities and customized coaching from SaaS leaders. Skysnag was also recently featured in a Yahoo Finance article that highlights their mission, product and the importance of phishing protection.
  On their homepage, Skysnag offers a free tool that allows organizations to check if their domain name is vulnerable to email impersonation attacks. Moving forward, Heba hopes to continue to provide tools for smaller companies that typically don’t have easy access to protection mechanisms. “Our deeper vision is to democratize cybersecurity,” she said. “It makes us extremely happy to see that we are protecting organizations from potential financial or data losses daily.”​

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  Report Date: 11/15/21