Regina Agyare is a young, dynamic, social entrepreneur who is finding new ways to harness technology to promote social change in West Africa. Agyare graduated from Ghana’s Ashesi University in 2005 as one of the top software developers in her class with a degree in Computer Science. After graduation, Regina was hired by a prestigious international bank in Accra as the first and only woman in the IT department.
After six years in the banking/technology industry, Agyare decided to follow her passion and founded her own social start-up called Soronko Solutions, which creates and manages ventures that apply technology to promote social development. Among the projects that Agyare has launched at Soronko includes one that introduced deaf girls to technology at the State Deaf School in Ghana – integrating apps that help promote communication in a society where use of sign language is limited. Agyare has led Soronko Solutions to develop a number of applications for disabled persons, as well as to promote interest in technology among girls and women. “Coming from a technology background, I mostly worked behind the scenes or let the men take the lead. I had to learn to assert myself, communicate and be heard. I made sure that once I had my voice, I spoke for those who didn’t — especially women,” Agyare says. In addition, she recently opened the first coding and human centered design school for children and young adults called Soronko Academy.