Hearing-Impaired Students Tech Stars: Five Nigerian Girls Take Saving Pad to a Global Summit

When a girl’s period starts, she shouldn’t have to wonder what to do. She should already know where to go. That idea drove five hearing-impaired schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Kuje, Abuja, to build an AI-powered app, and it took them all the way to the 2026 Technovation Girls World Summit in Bengaluru, India. For a global tech summit Nigeria rarely sends such a team to, it was a proud moment.

From Kuje to Bengaluru

The team, known as the STRIM Girls, made the global finals after competing against thousands of teams from more than 160 countries. The members are Adegbile Teniola Vivian, Sulaiman Maryam Adenike Isah, Moses Joy, Ukpapi Theresa Uzepi and Yusuf Ruth, and they were mentored by the Technology Beyond Disability Initiative.

What Saving Pad does

Their app, Saving Pad, helps students find nearby sanitary pad banks, request menstrual products and learn about menstrual health. It was designed with deaf girls and students with disabilities in mind, since they often face extra barriers.

Features include:

• an interactive map of pad banks
• a request system
• period tracking
• menstrual health education
• stock alerts for coordinators when supplies run low

Beyond the competition

The team has already begun a pilot with the Deaf Women Aloud Initiative in three special schools in Abuja. The next goal is to reach primary healthcare centers and vulnerable communities across the country. The platform could also help NGOs and donors track distribution, watch demand and plan restocking.

At the summit, the girls showed how accessible technology and community support can tackle menstrual health challenges, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals on health, education and partnerships.

A welcome home

Back in Nigeria, the girls were greeted at the airport by Dr Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi, Director-General of the Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development, together with her management team.

Why it matters for girls in STEM Africa

This story shows what girls in STEM Africa can achieve when they get mentoring, tools and trust. These students didn’t wait for a perfect product to exist. They built one around a need they understood. If you want to follow young talent like this, digital innovation events are a good place to meet it, and one day some of these teams may well be filling software development jobs.