In a world where one billion people still lack official identification, an 18-year-old from Illinois is closer than ever to putting a dent in one of the most stubborn barriers to equality — especially for women.
Elizabeth Nyamwange, now a freshman at MIT, is preparing her invention, Etana, for real-world testing after years of refining the device from a high school idea into a potentially groundbreaking tool for the global South.
Her solution sounds deceptively simple: a solar-powered, fingerprint-scanning device that generates a biometric digital ID without internet, electricity, or a traditional government database. In communities where paperwork is scarce and connectivity is sparse, that combination could be revolutionary.
A Problem Rooted in Gender and Geography
“Women are far less likely to have identification than men,” Nyamwange said in 2023 when her invention started gaining tractioning.
This lack of ID for women is a reality that affects access to healthcare, property rights, education, and banking. Around the world, lacking ID often means lacking legal existence, Nyamwange argues.
Nyamwange drew inspiration from her family’s Kenyan roots and from earlier blockchain identification models like IDBox. But she reimagined the technology with a gender-responsive lens, aiming at rural women who remain disproportionately shut out.
Etana’s Evolution: From High School Prototype to 2025 Readiness
Etana compresses a fingerprint into a secure algorithm and stores it on a private blockchain. The device costs about $50 and can operate entirely off-grid — a deliberate benefit for the communities it’s meant for.
Since 2022, the project has pulled in early wins:
- $36,000 combined from HP Girls Save the World, MIT Solve, and Taco Bell’s Ambition Accelerator
- A role as a UN youth advisor
- A profile as one of the youngest voices tackling the “identification crisis”
Now, in 2025, the technology has leaped forward. Working with MIT mentors, Nyamwange’s team has:
- Upgraded Etana to function over 2G networks, still common in rural Africa
- Integrated the scanner with mobile wallet systems, a potential gateway to instant bank access
- Secured a $50,000 Gates Foundation grant for field trials
- Advanced U.S. and Kenyan patent filings, with a target for community pilots in 2026
“These women are the ones who inspired this,” she says. “It has to work where they live, not where tech investors live.”
The Barriers Ahead
Despite the momentum, the path isn’t frictionless.
Convincing governments to recognize blockchain-based identities remains a major regulatory hurdle. Without such recognition, Etana can help individuals store their ID — but not necessarily use it for official services.
Nyamwange is clear-eyed about that tension: “Getting governments to recognize blockchain IDs isn’t plug-and-play.”
Her own journey has its challenges, too. Balancing MIT coursework with startup-level responsibilities means late nights and a workload most adults would struggle to manage. She admits she nearly walked away from the project during her sophomore year of high school — until she watched a test scan unlock a virtual bank account.
“That moment reminded me why I started,” she says. “For women in villages who can’t access banking or healthcare because they’re ‘unverified.’”
A Young Inventor With a Global View
Amid an industry obsessed with flashy AI and venture capital headlines, Nyamwange’s work offers a quiet counterpoint: technology designed for dignity, not disruption.
If Etana’s pilots succeed, the ripple effects could be profound — boosting women’s access to formal employment, strengthening local economies, and reshaping what digital inclusion looks like in the world’s most offline regions.
For Nyamwange, though, the metric of success is personal.
“It’s when a woman in a Kenyan village scans her finger and opens her first bank account,” she says. “That’s the win.”
