Samrawit Fikru (

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

: ሳምራዊት ፍቅሩ) is an

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, and businesswoman who is the founder and CEO of Hybrid Designs PLC, a software development company which produces the most popular ridesharing app in the country,

RIDE Ride may refer to: People * MC Ride, a member of Death Grips * Sally Ride (1951–2012), American astronaut * William Ride (19262011), Australian zoologist Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Ride'' (1998 film), a comedy film by Millicen ...

Early life and education

Fikru was born in

Asella Asella (, ) is a town in central Ethiopia. Located in the Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region south from Addis Ababa, this town has a latitude and longitude of , with an elevation of 2,430 meters. Asella hosts an Asella Airport (IATA code ALK). Asall ...

. She received her diploma in

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

from MicroLink Information Technology College in 2004. She graduated with a BSc in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from the HiLCoE School of Computer Science and Technology in 2006.

Career

Fikru founded the software development company Hybrid Designs in 2014. The same year, Hybrid Designs released

as an

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

-based ridesharing service. It was relaunched as a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

with a backing

call center A call centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American English, American spelling; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences) is a managed capability th ...

in July 2017. RIDE was inspired by the difficulty Fikru experienced trying to hire a

taxi cab A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

after late nights at work, and was partly inspired by the then existing ride sharing app, ZayRide. She also wanted to create a service to address the safety concerns felt by herself and others in trying to find a taxi, and developed RIDE to help address these gaps. As of 2020, the app has tens of thousands of users and has been downloaded over 50,000 times. The development staff for the app is 90% female. Fikru aims to inspire other women with her work: "Women-owned business are growing in number; now we need more young girls to access the finances to make their creative ideas happen." In 2022, Fikru released ''Sewasew'', a

streaming platform An over-the-top media service (also known as over-the-top television, or simply OTT) is a digital distribution service of video and audio delivered directly to viewers via the public Internet, rather than through an over-the-air, cable, satell ...

for Ethiopian music.

Honors and awards

*Fikru was recognized as one of the Rest of World's 100 Global Tech Changemakers *Fikru's success as a tech entrepreneur and her inspiration to young women were recognised by her inclusion on the

BBC's 100 Women ''100 Women'' is a BBC multi-format series established in 2013. The annual series examines the role of women in the 21st century and has included events in London and Mexico. Announcement of the list is the start of an international "BBC's wome ...

list in 2022.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fikru, Samrawit 21st-century Ethiopian women 21st-century women engineers Ethiopian chief executives Ethiopian women in business Ethiopian women computer scientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Women chief executives Women company founders 21st-century Ethiopian people