Who are Africa's Marissa Mayers?

Editor's note: Michelle Atagana is the managing editor of memeburn.com, a social media and research news site. She has a Masters Degree in New Media and Journalism, her thesis focuses on social media technologies in the South African journalistic space with some focus on the public sphere.

The workplace

According to Mayer "women in the workplace and women in innovation will be key drivers of global competitiveness and innovation henceforth." I in fact believe that. At that time again, like as not I am biased.

Marieme Jamme, the founder of a great initiative called Africa Gathering is another -- she works to pioneer growth on the continent as then as inspire young African women to tech involve in the research space.

I think it's time women in Africa stop looking at research as something that men do. It's not a man's world. Every time I explain the type of journalism I do, people ask "nevertheless isn't that for technical people, like guys?"

Women like Rapelang Rabana, co-founder of Yeigo Communications, a mobile VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) company that was integrated into the Telfree group. Rabana is now the Global Head of Innovation and Development at Telfree. She was as well called a tech pioneer by South Africa's Minister of communication at a conference aimed at promoting research in Africa.

Then there is Barbara Mallinson, who thought in a world where Facebook is king it was necessary to have a safe social network for young people that could double as an education tool. Her company Obami is an e-learning and communications platform for schools.

I find Juliet Ehimuan Google country manager for Nigeria fascinating. She has a pretty tough job heading up operations in one of Africa's largest internet-user communities and dealing with Nigeria's poor online reputation.

The Vice President

Another one is Isis Nyongo is the Vice President and Managing Director of InMobi, the world's largest independent mobile advertising network. Previously that she was the Business Development Manager for Google's Africa.

Anne Amuzu technical head of Ghana-based Nandimobile, a mobile company that hopes to "leverage the high mobile penetration rates in Africa to create mobile customer service research," which will help businesses "easily connect with their clients on the mobile platform."

The CEO of Main One Cable Company

Funke Opeke is the CEO of Main One Cable Company and founder of Main Street Technologies. Main One is a communications company that provides "open access international connectivity and broadband capacity to countries in West Africa."

Google's Anita Borg's Scholars are as well young women to watch. Oluwasola Fasan, Maletsabisa Molapo and Joyce Mwangama are all university students based in South Africa and are part of Google's project to foster women in research in Africa.

The project

The project was launched in 2004 to honor American computer scientist Anita Borg, who founded the Institute for Women and Innovation.