Sustaining Women Involvement in the Technology Sector

Nosa Alekhuogie in this report writes about the increasing involvement of young women in the technology space and their resilience in competing with their male counterparts

Despite the rapid growth in Nigeria’s technology sector, only very few women have the opportunity to participate as founders/owners or employees of technology businesses. As such, bridging the gap between male and female participation in the technology sector remains a huge challenge for the stakeholders. However, in recent times, there has been increase in the involvement of females in the technology space.

Women’s Involvement
Regardless of the disparity in accessing opportunities, women are beginning to create innovations and to spearhead change through technology in their immediate environments. Gradually, things are changing as younger women are showing interest in the sector.

As the world is constantly changing to meet new demands of modernisation, technocrats have worked tirelessly to improve the quality of human life. From seamless methods of paying for goods and services, to delivery of the same goods across a wide range of industries, with the pandemic, the use of technology has also created a boisterous new world online for connecting people to their loved ones, facilitating trade and serving as a tool to keep people connected to their religious affiliations. The traditional definition of work, which was previously tied to particular locations have become more flexible to accommodate remote workers.

With companies like Google (Alphabet), Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft leading the pace as the top five largest technology stock in the world, all owned by males, female tech founders have been trailing the path by contributing their skills to making the world better.
The task of bridging the gender gap and sustaining female participation in the tech space has become a subject of formal discourse.

A recent study of Women in Technology by Price Waterhouse Coppers (PwC), showed that only 16 per cent of females at pre-university level have had tech careers suggested to them with only 3 per cent originally intending to pursue careers in technology.

According to the TrustRadius 2021 Women in Tech Report, 72 per cent of women in tech say they are outnumbered by men 2-to-1 or more; 26 per cent (more than a fourth).
As technology continues to dictate the pathway for the future of work and life, the need for a more inclusive participation of the female gender has become imminent.

Solving Problems with Tech
With the disproportionate number of women in the tech space around the world, the female gender has shown tremendous capacity to contribute to the world progress from revitalising small and medium scale businesses in Nigeria using digital technologies and innovation to deliver creative solutions to different problems to creating an avenue to ensure visibility for artisans in Kenya and opening platforms for investment and also, tightening the noose around food wastage in America

In Nigeria, the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Bamboo, Ms. Yanmo Omorogbe, while sharing her story on how she co-founded Bamboo, an app which allows Nigerians and other users have access to foreign and local securities stated that the need opened up when she experienced firsthand the difficulty of investing in US stocks. Bamboo has since grown from a discussion she had with her co-founder to a digital platform helping thousands of Nigerians engage in foreign direct investment from safe and secure spaces.

On her part, the Country Manager, Wabi2B Nigeria, a tech B2B platform which connects retailers to wholesalers in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector and enables them shop for products from the comfort of their homes or stores, Ms. Omolara Adagunodo, noted that it is the company’s goal to digitise the existing traditional platform by ensuring that every retailer is visible online and can stock up their stores in a smart, easy and more flexible way.

Kenyan technocrat, Ms. Judith Owigar, has also applied technology to strike a balance between artisans and people who may need them hence making living more fluid for both the artisan and their prospective clients. By creating the mobile app, Owigar noted that the app would register the data of artisans so that prospective clients can see them. For one, this would meet the needs of people who occupy a large chunk of Africa’s population; artisans, granting them recognition for their expertise and helping them connect with clients within and outside their geographical location. Juakali, Judith hopes to help artisans gain visibility in the sector, which has not fully being explored before now.

In the United States, Ms. Christine Moseley, Founder of Full Harvest, a Business to Business (B2B) model of linking large scale farmers with food companies, has championed the cause to reduce food wastage by ensuring the badly shaped and excess farm produce have ready off takers in the food preparation and packaging companies. This would ensure that food and fruit packaging companies use these fruits, which would otherwise have gone to waste with the ripple effect of reducing the market price for these goods.

Having worked in the supply and logistics industry, Moseley stated that she was amazed at the proportion of produce, which went to waste which she placed at least a quarter of every harvest. Her business model therefore, she said, is to address, “the huge critical need for technology in the food supply chain that had been dramatically missing for decades.” The goal, she said, “is to digitise the food supply chain in order to reduce cost and speed up efficiency.”

Sustaining Female’s Involvement
The Co-founder, Piggy Vest, Ms. Odunayo Eweniyi, has opined that in Africa, the normative beliefs, which puts women in subordination to men as a culture while encouraging patriarchy has put women on the sidelines of critical decision making around the world. In her words, “The lack of women in tech (can’t be explained away) with innate biological differences. It is really down to a combination of systemic bias, men funding men and a working culture that excludes women.”

The Country Manager, Wabi2B Nigeria, Ms. Omolara Adagunodo, stated that to effect and sustain a representation of women in the industry, mentoring females in tech would be a necessity.
She further explained that growing up, she did not have aspirations to be in the tech space but was inspired to make her mark when she found herself on the job.

“Mentorship for younger girls is a way to create opportunities and awareness for younger females getting into the industry and starting life in general. It is easier for them to know what to expect when they have somebody who trod the same steps they are walking in and is helping them grow and is helping to groom them,” Adagunodo said.

Speaking on her experiences as a female in a male dominated industry, Adagunodo said that gender biases are almost non-existent as each person has allocated tasks and get rewarded for completing them irrespective of their gender.
“As a female in the tech industry, we have equal opportunities and tasks to fill and you get the respect for doing what you are meant to do and for solving problems as they come. The opportunities in tech are boundless and every single female thinking about getting into tech should stop thinking and just do it. Tech is the best thing to do right now,” she said.

Female’s Interest
According to teen Founder of social media app, Timeless, Ms. Emma Yang, ensuring female inclusion in the tech industry and sustaining the same would require early exposure of young girls to tech not just as a career but an avenue to solve world problems.

Inspired by the difficulty experienced in communicating with her grandmother when the latter became ill with Alzheimer’s disease, Emma recounted that her knowledge of tech and the helplessness which came with not being able to communicate with her grandmother with whom she grew up in Hong Kong, inspired her to develop the app.

The 16 year old Yang noted that she started coding at the age of six when her dad introduced her to a programming tool called Scratch. Upon participating in a technovation challenge at 11 and coming out second place globally, Emma noted that the competition exposed her to a community of women using technology to drive change.

“Participating in technovation changed my perspective because it showed me that when you are driven to solve a problem for your community, your mission and purpose drive ground breaking ideas. What I truly cherished was a whole community of girls and women who had ground breaking ideas that could change the world. You do not have to be a doctor or a politician to change the world. Solve the problems you see around you. Solve the ones that matter to you,” Yang said.