13 Sep 2018

Southern Africa Start-Up Award nominee, Refiloe Matlapeng, 22, who considers herself a futurist and visionary tech entrepreneur uses mobile software technologies to meet the needs of African communities.

Ms Matlapeng, born and raised in Tlokweng, has established Vimosure technology to meet the needs of the financially excluded population of Africa.

In an interview, the co-founder of Vimo Inc said Vimosure technology was an insurance platform that was revolutionising how insurance is offered in Africa.

She noted that Vimosure technology was founded in 2016 and materialised in 2018 and out of over 3 200 nominations she has been nominated at the Southern Africa Start-Up Awards in the category of Female Role Model.

Vimosure, she said is a mobile software technology and noted that a mobile technology is any software that can be accessed on portable devices either under internet connection or not.

Ms Matlapeng said laptops, mobile phones, ATMs just to name a few are true examples of mobile portable devices. “The technology sets out to reinvent the way insurance is done with an entirely new business model which uses mobile technologies which aims to achieve affordability, accessibility and transparency to reduce costs for the low income class,” she explained.

She elaborated that mobile technologies have high efficiency and flexibility of services with information delivered through mobile tech, which eliminates difficulties.

Ms Matlapeng further explained that the rapid advancements of mobile technologies advanced lives in so many ways, from health to finances, religious lifestyles and entertainment hence she created Vimosure technology.

“I’ve always loved astronauts, scientists and inventors like Thomas Edison who established new inventions and solved what were then the hardest problems in life,” she said. Ms Matlapeng noted that she adored how inventors simplified people’s lives.

She added that many times inventors were perceived as crazy and too ambitious, but she believes that the prize of thinking in ways no one does turns out to be one of the key factors that keep her inspired. “Having to talk about challenges makes me want to cry, its genuinely difficult,” she confessed. The tech entrepreneur lamented that ‘there are few women in the space of technology and I have no female source of inspiration’ which she said resulted in her developing herself into a character of inspiration.

She said she has never met a woman in a boardroom except when the woman is a chief executive officer from a whole different fraternity. Ms Matlapeng mentioned that most of the time her interactions in the business are with males and knowing where to find the right support is not always easy.

She said ‘challenges are often external factors and overcoming them still starts from within someone and it often comes easier when one is determined with a clear goal and vision.’

“I am quite an optimistic person recently than before and I overcome challenges by first believing that it’s not in the shallow physical imitation of man that women will assert their superiority, but the awakening of the intellect of women,” she said. Ms Matlapeng further clarified that it was more about making use of model of partnership, collaboration and unity, adding that all thinking could be done by anyone regardless of gender.ENDS