School for Life founder Annabelle Chauncy is one of 15 women nominated for the award, which is an initiative that celebrates talent and entrepreneurship.

Ms Chauncy and Dave Everett founded the School for Life Foundation and raised money to build and open the Katuuso School in Uganda in 2011.

School For Life now educates 220 children and provides more than 500 adults with vocational training.

Ms Chauncy said she was thrilled to be nominated for the award.

"I am so honoured to have been nominated for such an incredible award and am really grateful to Women's Weekly, Qantas and the judges for listing me as a semi-finalist among such a high calibre of young Australian women," she said.

The prize is $10,000 worth of Qantas flights and $20,000 cash, which Ms Chauncy said she would put directly towards building a tailoring centre in Uganda to help employ and empower women through skills and capacity development.

"The average education level attained by women in our community is Year 3 and many are unable to read and write, which makes it very difficult for them to gain employment," she said.

She said many were forced to do hard physical labour on their subsistence farms, growing the food they eat and selling leftover produce, rather than being able to generate a revenue to help themselves and their families.

While a spare classroom is being used for the tailoring program, the school is growing and more space is needed for vocational training programs.

"When the women start our program, they have never seen or held a pair of scissors, or used a sewing machine," Ms Chauncy said.

"The funds from the Women of the Future award would enable us to train another 100 women to sew and generate an income for themselves, thereby breaking them and their families free from the cycle of poverty."

Ms Chauncy said they would commence construction of two more schools, a primary and a secondary school, in 2015.

"This is about a $1 million project and will enable more than 1000 students access to education," she said.

"We are really excited about starting this project and need as many donations as possible to enable us to continue our work."

Ms Chauncy said guttering and water tanks were being implemented in at the school to enable the community access to clean drinking water.

"In our area, there are few streams and rivers, and those that do exist are often contaminated, leading to high incidence of typhoid and other water borne diseases," she said.

"Additionally, we are working on another seven teacher houses, to ensure we can attract and retain high quality Ugandan teachers and give our students a quality education."

The School of Life has recently purchased 30 acres of land for next two schools.

"We are currently fencing and clearing the land, as well as beginning an animal husbandry program (goats and pigs) to generate food for the children as well as income that will go directly back into our operations."

For Ms Chauncy to win the award, the public needs to vote and they can vote as many times as they like before August 27.

* Click here to vote for Annabelle Chauncy.