An Irish team has won the top prize at the 2020 virtual Technovation World Summit.

Rachael Akano (16), Margaret Akano (17) and Joy Njekwe (17) – under the mentorship of Evelyn Nomayo, founder of Phase Innovate – pitched their entry, Memory Haven, at the event this week.

On Friday they were announced as the winners of the senior girls’ division.

The winning moment pic.twitter.com/oaNsEWQhsx

— Phase Innovate (@nomayo_evelyn) August 14, 2020

According to The Irish Times, Memory Haven is designed to help people in Ireland whose families have been impacted by dementia.

Influenced by research that shows music can comfort people with dementia, the team incorporated a playlist into the app, as well as healthcare features such as alerts, face and voice recognition and health checks.

Phase Innovate, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to bridging the gender and race gap in science, technology, engineering and maths in Ireland, was founded by Nomayo in May 2018.

Earlier this year, Nomayo – currently a PhD research fellow in Trinity College Dublin – entered six teams into the 2020 Technovation Girls, an annual competition that allows girls to tackle community issues through technology.

Four made it to the semi-finals, and one team of three Nigerian-Irish teenage girls secured a place in the senior division finals after creating the Memory Haven app.

It was the only team from the European Union to qualify for the senior division finals.