Samrawit Fikru, the entrepreneur revolutionising transport in Ethiopia

Samrawit Fikru is a computer scientist, businesswoman and entrepreneur. She is the founder of the software development company “Hybrid Designs” in 2014, which produces “Ride”, Ethiopia’s most popular ride-sharing app.

For the past ten years, Samrawit Fikru has been known in her country, Ethiopia, for her commitment to reforming the transport sector. In just a few years, her app has grown from a solution offering car-sharing services by SMS to a mobile application downloaded more than 50,000 times, used by 5 million consumers and counting more than 70,000 drivers in the capital city Addis Ababa.

She discovered computers for the first time at the age of 17. She then joined the Microlink Information Technology College in 2004, where she obtained a diploma in software engineering. In 2006, she earned a degree in computer science from the HiLCoE School of Computer Science and Technology.

After working in IT for a few years, in 2014 she founded the software development company Hybrid Designs. Due to a personal experience, related to her difficulty in finding a taxi late at night, while coming home from work, she created “Ride” the same year, which solves this challenge, offering safe, reliable and affordable transport services. Initially, the app offered users the chance to order a taxi via text message. In 2017, it became a mobile application with a customer call centre.

Not only does the app enable users to order a taxi in complete safety, it also provides employment for many Ethiopians, including women who make up 90% of the mobile application’s development team, as well as many drivers. It currently operates in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, with more than 30,000 vehicles.

In addition to passenger transport, the application also offers food delivery through the “Ride Food” service, which has a catalogue of more than 50 restaurants. It also offers specific transport and delivery services for businesses through ‘Ride Business’. The app has also been operational in Djibouti for a number of years.

In 2022, Samrawit Fikru moved into another domain, namely music, by creating “Sewasew”, a streaming platform for Ethiopian music, with a variety of music and artists…

As a result of her inspiring entrepreneurial journey, she has been recognized as one of the BBC 100 Women of 2022. She has also been included in the list of 100 Global Tech Change Makers in the world.