The strength of women lies in never giving up

South Africa’s Jaqueline Rogers embodies resilience.  She’s a programmer, a profession notoriously dominated by men.  And she’s both a single mom and an entrepreneur.  In this interview, she talks about the challenges she faced in launching her app My Pregnancy Journey. 

Why did you develop this app?

One day, I came across shocking statistics about pregnancies in Africa. The African continent got some of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancies, HIV infections and deaths during births.  One out of four women actually has a fatal pregnancy outcome. So, several things contribute to this, like social economic conditions, bad healthcare services, and a lack of information. So those are the things that motivated us to create our educational pregnancy app.

What challenges did you encounter?

The biggest challenge was to just get this project completed.  We had to find ways to self-fund it.  I sold my first business, I sold shares, I sold my car.  I did a whole lot of crazy things to just get the project over the line, baby steps at a time.

What do you want to say to other women developers?

The development industry is very male-dominated.  I just want to tell people that females can do the job just as well.  And yeah, I think women are going to change the world one day.

What do you expect from the Huawei Women Developers Program?

Female entrepreneurs are still new in this industry.  We need training, workshops, information about building an app, and all the other things that go into it. A learning school for women entrepreneurs and developers is what we need.