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About us

Words That Count is an initiative that documents stories of successful African women in STEM fields to present the various prospects on the STEM spectrum to young girls mapping their careers in STEM. 

The scarcity of female role models in the STEM field makes it hard to close the gender gap. Knowing such women personally might be hard but having a media platform where many of them can be found for reference mitigates the challenge. While compiling their stories, the women featured realize how far they have come on their journey and are encouraged to scale greater heights. This platform also inadvertently helps these women overcome impostor syndrome as they retrospect on their STEM journey.

Annual report
Organisational chart

Mission

To promote STEM among African women and girls through story-sharing, confidence-building, and projection of all possible career paths on the STEM spectrum for those passionate about STEM.

Vision

To be the ideal builders of a STEM-oriented Africa which is intentional about providing quality education to young women and girls and uplifting them to pursue their dream careers in STEM.

What we value

Integrity

We maintain honesty and transparency in the stories featured to bring out a realistic picture to our target audience.

Diversity

We appreciate and respect African women from different cultural and economic backgrounds.

Support for women

We delight in helping African women rise above the stereotypes imposed by culture and society.

Professionalism

We care about every aspect of what we do and work to maintain the high standards we set

STEM Advocacy

We proudly amplify the voice of STEM in Africa and work to attract more women into it.

Our awesome team

Winnie Nakiyingi is a Statistician from Kampala-Uganda, with a passion for Education and Research. Coming from a STEM background, she is interested in developing business ideas that contribute to SDG’s 4&5 with a STEM lens. Winnie received her earlier education in Uganda under the sponsorship of Starcross Community from the United States of America, until bachelors level where she pursued a degree in Economics and Statistics from Makerere University in Uganda. She then secured a full master’s scholarship at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). She also received scholarships for a research-based master’s degree at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. Winnie has working experience from Uganda, South Africa, Ghana, and Rwanda, in different STEM-related positions. All this experience, plus Winnie’s discomfort as a young girl in a science class with only 5% females raised questions about how she could contribute to achieving quality education and gender equality in the African STEM sphere. In her own words, “Owing to my gender, I was perceived by society as incapable of amounting to much. With my background, I, unfortunately, didn’t know any women pursuing what I was passionate about as a career so I internalized this fear.” Not wanting this to be the case for another girl after her, Winnie founded Words That Count.
Winnie NakiyingFounder
Winnie Nakiying
Linda is a Research Consultant at the World Resources Institute. Previously, she has contributed to local efforts towards two global programs: the Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) for climate change adaptation and the Agriculture for Food Security (AgriFoSe2030) Program. When she is not doing climate change research, Linda enjoys documenting and editing stories of African women in STEM.

She is experienced in Partnerships and Communications and has interacted with development partners, academia, and government agencies in advocacy campaigns, dialogues (high level and community), alliance building, research, and policy design processes.

She holds a Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution and Coexistence from Brandeis University and a Bachelor of Microfinance from Kyambogo University.
Linda MwesigwaChief Editor
Linda Mwesigwa
Yara is currently a market researcher of minerals at the Mozambique Energy Intelligence. She shares her content with ENERMINA, a market of mines, energy, environment, and agriculture. She has a degree in geological and mining engineering but discovered her great passion for hydrocarbon geology. She is so good at it that her first research was on the Mazenga block, which is currently the subject of work.

Yara has a great passion for writing; she was a writer on the “children's school books” project at the NGO Progress. She is also a screenwriter on the “one film per district” project. She likes to let people know that she's a feminist, and has a different definition of women that society doesn't. Yara believes that supporting women doesn’t mean that women should rebel against men, but rather give voice to both men and women. Society cannot grow if it does not educate both, since they both live in the same society.

Yara Victoria MabuieLead representative
Yara Victoria Mabuie
Ann is a graduate in Mathematics with experience in Data Analysis and also a young upcoming Data Scientist. She is currently pursuing an MSc in Life Sciences (Biostatistics) at the University of Helsinki with part time studies in Data science. Ann is also a MasterCard Foundation scholar. She is  currently participating in Longitudinal cohort studies with MasterCard and one of the Jim Leech scholars on entrepreneurship. Her research interest mainly lies in coming up with methods and statistical tools in clinical trials and cancer research, survival analysis, statistical prediction and genomic data analysis.
Ann ChepkoechSwahili Representative
Ann Chepkoech
Riham is a Senior Lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in Mathematical Education Studies in Sudan. She did her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. She then received a full master’s scholarship at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Riham also received a scholarship from Organization for Women in Science in the Developing World (OWSD) to do her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Her research studies focused on the link between Mechanical Engineering and Cell Biology to Mathematical Analysis and Computational Modeling. She is one of the researchers focusing on Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Cellular Biomechanics worldwide.
Riham Kamal Ibrahim AhmedArabic Representative
Riham Kamal Ibrahim Ahmed
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Our awesome team

Winnie Nakiyingi

Founder
Winnie Nakiyingi is a Statistician from Kampala-Uganda, with a passion for Education and Research. Coming from a STEM background, she is interested in developing business ideas that contribute to SDG’s 4&5 with a STEM lens. Winnie received her earlier education in Uganda under the sponsorship of Starcross Community from the United States of America, until bachelors level where she pursued a degree in Economics and Statistics from Makerere University in Uganda. She then secured a full master’s scholarship at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). She also received scholarships for a research-based master’s degree at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. Winnie has working experience from Uganda, South Africa, Ghana, and Rwanda, in different STEM-related positions. All this experience, plus Winnie’s discomfort as a young girl in a science class with only 5% females raised questions about how she could contribute to achieving quality education and gender equality in the African STEM sphere. In her own words, “Owing to my gender, I was perceived by society as incapable of amounting to much. With my background, I, unfortunately, didn’t know any women pursuing what I was passionate about as a career so I internalized this fear.” Not wanting this to be the case for another girl after her, Winnie founded Words That Count.
Linda Mwesigwa

Chief Editor
Linda is a Research Consultant at the World Resources Institute. Previously, she has contributed to local efforts towards two global programs: the Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) for climate change adaptation and the Agriculture for Food Security (AgriFoSe2030) Program. When she is not doing climate change research, Linda enjoys documenting and editing stories of African women in STEM.

She is experienced in Partnerships and Communications and has interacted with development partners, academia, and government agencies in advocacy campaigns, dialogues (high level and community), alliance building, research, and policy design processes.

She holds a Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution and Coexistence from Brandeis University and a Bachelor of Microfinance from Kyambogo University.
Yara Victoria Mabuie

Lead Representative

Yara is currently a market researcher of minerals at the Mozambique Energy Intelligence. She shares her content with ENERMINA, a market of mines, energy, environment, and agriculture. She has a degree in geological and mining engineering but discovered her great passion for hydrocarbon geology. She is so good at it that her first research was on the Mazenga block, which is currently the subject of work.

Yara has a great passion for writing; she was a writer on the “children's school books” project at the NGO Progress. She is also a screenwriter on the “one film per district” project. She likes to let people know that she's a feminist, and has a different definition of women that society doesn't. Yara believes that supporting women doesn’t mean that women should rebel against men, but rather give voice to both men and women. Society cannot grow if it does not educate both, since they both live in the same society.

Ann Chepkoech

Swahili Representative
Ann is a graduate in Mathematics with experience in Data Analysis and also a young upcoming Data Scientist. She is currently pursuing an MSc in Life Sciences (Biostatistics) at the University of Helsinki with part time studies in Data science. Ann is also a MasterCard Foundation scholar. She is  currently participating in Longitudinal cohort studies with MasterCard and one of the Jim Leech scholars on entrepreneurship. Her research interest mainly lies in coming up with methods and statistical tools in clinical trials and cancer research, survival analysis, statistical prediction and genomic data analysis.
Riham Kamal Ibrahim Ahmed

Arabic Representative

Riham is a Senior Lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in Mathematical Education Studies in Sudan. She did her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. She then received a full master’s scholarship at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Riham also received a scholarship from Organization for Women in Science in the Developing World (OWSD) to do her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Her research studies focused on the link between Mechanical Engineering and Cell Biology to Mathematical Analysis and Computational Modeling. She is one of the researchers focusing on Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Cellular Biomechanics worldwide.

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Key partners

Creptie School
Creptie School website
Beedesigned studio
Beedesigned Studio website
THINK
Think website
Mercatus center
Mercatus Center website
Creptie School
Creptie School website
Beedesigned studio
Beedesigned Studio website
THINK
Think website
Mercatus center
Mercatus Center website

Beedesigned Studio

Beedesigned Studio is a leading UX design and development agency based in Bulawayo. They use pixel-perfect designs and fancy technology to create brands, products and experiences that help their clients in solving social problems and seizing opportunities.

Beedesigned Studio website

Creptie School

Creptie school is a coding institution that provides intensive programming and coding training through programs which are extremely practical , hands-on and delivered by experts. Students learn through a series of immersive projects and real world applications,  supported expert talks , mentors, webinars and workshops. During the course students learn the core of web & game development, design thinking, physical computing and robotics.

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