Luminary is a directory and news platform celebrating women making global impact across fields such as business, science, technology, education, politics, and the arts.
The platform makes the work of women visible, verifiable, and searchable by providing a community-powered directory and curated news feed highlighting women driving change in their communities and industries.
This project was created as part of an International Women's Day initiative by Tabî Project and TEE Foundation.
Women across Africa and globally are leading businesses, driving scientific breakthroughs, shaping policy, creating art, and building communities. Despite this impact, they remain underrepresented in mainstream recognition platforms and media coverage.
Luminary aims to address this gap by providing a searchable platform that:
- Celebrates women making meaningful impact
- Enables public nominations and self-submissions
- Provides verified profiles with supporting evidence
- Surfaces news stories highlighting women globally
A searchable and filterable directory of verified profiles highlighting women across multiple fields.
Each profile includes:
- Full name
- Country
- Field(s) of work
- Organisation or initiative
- Biography and achievements
- Links to websites, projects, publications, and social profiles
- Profile photo
- Evidence links verifying the nominee's work
Directory functionality includes:
- Search by name, field, country, or organisation
- Filter by field category, country/region, or year of recognition
- Sorting by recently added, alphabetical, or field
Luminary allows both third-party nominations and self-submissions.
Submission features include:
- Nominee details
- Nominator details (for third-party nominations)
- Description of impact
- Field category
- Evidence links
- Photo uploads
For third-party nominations, nominees receive an automated email requesting consent before a profile is published.
Submission status workflow:
- Submitted → Outreach Sent → Consent Received → Published / Declined
Luminary includes a curated news feed highlighting stories of women making global impact.
News items include:
- Headline
- Source
- Summary
- Image
- External link
- Field tags
- Publication date
Additional features:
- Daily Spotlight highlighting one featured story
- Weekly Roundup summarizing major stories
- Filters by field, country, or date
- Moderated community news submissions
Profiles and news items are organised using a shared category system:
- Business & Entrepreneurship
- Science & Research
- Technology & Engineering
- Arts & Culture
- Activism & Advocacy
- Education & Academia
- Health & Medicine
- Agriculture & Food
- Politics & Governance
- Sport & Fitness
- Media & Journalism
- Finance & Economics
Frontend
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
Backend
- Node.js
- Express
Database & Authentication
- Supabase (PostgreSQL)
Search
- Supabase Full-Text Search
- Resend or SendGrid
Image Storage
- Cloudinary
CMS (News Management)
- Notion API or Strapi
Hosting
- Netlify (Frontend)
- Railway or Render (Backend)
All profiles published on Luminary must meet verification requirements to maintain credibility.
Verification includes:
- At least one evidence link (press coverage, official website, published work, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Editorial review before publication
- Consent confirmation for third-party nominations
- Ability for users to flag inaccurate or outdated information
- Display of a "Last Verified" date on each profile
Luminary follows several core UX and accessibility principles:
- SEO-first page structure
- Mobile-first responsive design
- Accessible interfaces compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA
- Minimum touch target size of 44 × 44 pixels
- High color contrast for readability
- A visual tone that is celebratory but credible
Contributions are welcome.
Ways to contribute include:
- Submitting nominations
- Reporting incorrect profile information
- Suggesting improvements to the platform
- Contributing to development
Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md file for contribution guidelines.
This project is part of the Luminary initiative by the Tabî Project and TEE Foundation.