Edith Mugehu

2018 fellow Edith Mugehu was named a recipient of the 2021 Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme, an African Union program that supports higher education cooperation between countries in Africa by providing financial support to educational institutions and supporting its students.
Edith is a PhD candidate in plant breeding and biotechnology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, as well as a research associate at the Zimbabwe Sugar Association Experiment Station. Recently, she began her six-month research stay at Kenyatta University in Kenya, where she is conducting ground-breaking research that will contribute to food security and poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is working on identifying beneficial genes in Zimbabwean sugarcane germplasm, as well as developing a tissue culture protocol that will be adopted by the Zimbabwe sugar industry in order to help farmers reduce costs associated with the propagation of sugarcane seed. Since TechWomen, Edith has been awarded all five grant or scholarship programs she has applied for. “I bloomed after and because of TechWomen,” she said. “I got a confidence boost. I can address any audience without fearing that I’m not good enough. I can now set bigger research goals because I realize how extraordinary I am. Because of TechWomen, I always want to make other young women and girls feel the same way and look at life with the same ambition and hope.”​