For the second year running, a Nigerian tech entrepreneur and Founder of Hervest, Solape Akinpelu, has won the $30,000 2025 Aurora Tech Award. She was announced the 2025 winner of the $30,000 prize at the grand finale held in Cairo from April 11–13. 
  
Akinpelu joined fellow compatriot, Folake Owodunni, who won the award in 2024, marking a powerful moment for Nigerian women driving innovation in the global tech space.
  
Hervest is a fintech platform providing financially underserved African women access to savings, impact investing, and credit, particularly for smallholder female farmers.
  
The other top four outstanding female tech founders recognised at the event include the first runner-up/founder of Nido Contech Loretxu Garcia Arraztoa from Chile; second runner-up and founder of FlexiBees Shreya Prakash from India; Chief Executive Officer, Arkangel AI Laura Velásquez Herrera from Colombia; and founder of UpLeap Leonie Korn from Switzerland. 
  
While the winner gets a cash prize of $30,000, the second and third places go home with $20,000 and $15,000. The fourth and fifth positions are entitled to $10,000, respectively.

Each finalist would gain exclusive access to the right investors, industry leaders, and strategic partners, who can move the needle on their business. 

The winners will also tap into inDrive’s expertise, team, and global network, giving them the support and resources to accelerate their growth, secure funding, and scale globally.   
  
The flagship event brought together the top 10 finalists from around the world — women building market-defining ventures — to compete for the main award prizes.
  
This year’s shortlist featured groundbreaking innovators from MENA, LATAM, Central Asia, and APAC, whose startups span diverse industries, including Artificial Intelligence, fintech, and health tech. The 2025 edition of the award saw an unprecedented 2,018 applications from 116 countries, doubling the number of submissions from the previous year.
  
The final stage of the competition occurred during the regional SHE CAN conference hosted by Entreprenelle, a leading Egyptian, dedicated to empowering women through education, training, and entrepreneurial support.   Since its inception in 2015, SHE CAN has become one of the MENA region’s most influential industry events, attracting over 7,000 attendees yearly.
  
Speaking at the event, Head of Aurora Tech Awards, Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, explained that the platform was created to support innovators in furthering their ideas. 
  
Also speaking, Chief Growth Officer and Head of Ride-Hailing at inDrive, Evgenia Matrosova, stated that the decision to support the innovators was to break the gender barrier in investment.