Before April 30, Elizabeth Ngure (19), Jackline Ndungu (17), Margaret Njuguna (16) and Margaret Gatimu (19) were just ordinary high school students.
Their school, Shamata Girls School - tucked away in a sleepy village in the backwaters of Ol-Kalau, Nyandarua County - was cast in the shadows of academic giants and many residents had not heard about it.
That changed dramatically early this year when the school shot into the global limelight, thanks to the four students who came second in the global Diamond Challenge for High School Entrepreneurs.
The idea that has won them national and global recognition revolves around processing potatoes into flour and packaging it to give it a longer shelf-life. Other alternatives include cold storage and processing the potatoes into crisps, which also gives it a longer shelf-life.
Such an idea would be a God-send to potato farmers in the county who continue to incur losses year in, year out despite being in a county considered as one of the largest potato producers.
When Life magazine visited the school for presentation of the award certificate and cheque, a new gravel road to the school had been laid.
The county government had also offered to take the girls on a one-week, fully-paid trip to the US with a flurry of other goodies pouring into the school.
Their current celebrity status is the culmination of an innovative idea presented at a competition that brought together participants from the US, Africa and Europe.
Organised by University of Delaware’s Horn Programme, the entrepreneurship challenge is a real world, business concept designed to offer high school students the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship while developing their creative, analytical and communication skills.
Locally, the university partners with Startup Africa, which supports young adults in building business skills.
The Shamata girls had won the national competition earlier in the year with their food security innovative idea, which they packaged as being a solution to hunger and poverty.
“When we heard about the Diamond Challenge we saw an opportunity to develop a concept on how to add value to potato produce and in so doing fight poverty by creating employment and business opportunities,” said David Njogu a teacher at the school who led the girls in their research.
The girls also experimented with various blends and found adding arrow roots and sweet potato to the flour increases its nutritional value.
The concept is said to have wowed the panel of judges at the Diamond challenge who praised it for its potential huge social impact.
Already, a humanitarian organisation has proposed to partner with the school to produce the potato flour in mass quantities for distribution in famine-stricken areas of North-Eastern Kenya.
This response has changed the girl’s world view and they already see themselves as agents of change.
“I want to change the world through ideas, even if it is in my own small way,” Jackline Ndungu declares.
“The Diamond challenge has opened new avenues for me and I want to use the opportunity to create change in society through entrepreneurial ideas,” she says.
County Executive Committee Member for Industrialisation, Co-operative and Trade Judy Nyambura Mwangi, has said they will use the school as a centre of excellence.
“We will also use Shamata Girls School to incubate entrepreneurial ideas before they are rolled out in other parts of the county,” she said.
Ms Mwangi also said the county will use the girls’ achievement as a platform to push for the women and youth enterprise fund set up by the Government.
