April 9, 2017
At Ashesi, Regina Honu (neé Agyare) ‘05 was a step away from switching her major away from Computer Science after struggling through the introductory Visual Basic class in her first year. Fortunately, she abandoned the idea and persisted through the course, eventually graduating as one of the top students of her class. Years later, Regina is now one of Africa’s most celebrated women in technology.
“All this started with a young girl who was going to quit her coding class because she had failed,” said Regina, speaking to freshmen in the introductory programming class and students of the Social Enterprise class at Ashesi. “But now I find myself in the position to impact policy for digital rights of children. All this happened, because I didn’t stop coding, I didn’t let my fear dominate me and I was able to see beyond my initial struggles.”
Several years after graduating from Ashesi, Regina set aside her career as an IT professional in the bank, and founded Soronko Solutions, a software company focused on producing software solutions to support local SMEs. Through Soronko Solutions, Regina supports Tech Needs Girls, a social enterprise she founded to help to teach girls in underserved communities how to code.
“It’s exciting to know that there’s a class on social entrepreneurship at Ashesi,” Regina said. “It’s a world that’s still being defined, and now there’s a lot more awareness around social entrepreneurship. So it’s always great to share my journey, challenges and impact. Hopefully, this will help guide budding social entrepreneurs in their journeys to creating impact.”
Over the years, Regina has won both local and global recognition for her work in pushing the frontiers for girls in technology. While she has been featured by several major media houses including the CNN, she was also named Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Ghana Startup Awards, is a YALI fellow and an Aspen New Voices fellow. In 2016, she was named as VLISCO Ambassador of the year, a role that allowed her to become an inspiration to more women in Ghana.
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