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what has defined me and given me my
drive, passion and opportunity to improve
myself every day.
Another successful female entrepreneur
shortlisted for the award is Kevine
Kagirimpundu, Co-founder and CEO, UZURI
K&Y (Rwanda). The company is an African-
inspired ecofriendly shoe brand established
in Rwanda. Kevine is the Co-founder and CEO
of UZURI K&Y, and she is passionate about
ending global waste while also leveraging
her creativity to create employment
opportunities for her community.
The awareness of the importance of
educating and providing equal opportunities
for girls is growing and in Africa we know of
course that there has been progress.
A 2019 Brookings Institute analysis says
that: ‘With 11-and-a-half years to go, Africa
is relatively on track to meet at least three
of the United Nations goals: SDG 5 (gender
equality), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG
15 (life on land)’.
Yet there is still a way to go – according to a
2019 report on education and literacy from
UNESCO, nine million girls between the ages
of about six and 11 in Africa will never go to
school at all, compared to six million boys.
In addition to the enrolment and exclusion
challenge is the reality across the world that
an extraordinarily low percentage of girls
choose technology and STEM subjects. To
achieve sustainable development goal five
(on gender equality and the empowerment
of women and girls), more girls need to
be staying on from primary school into
secondary school – and we need to see
many more girls studying STEM and
technology. One approach (outside of policy)
is encouragement through role models.
Invisible role models
The importance of positive role
models is something which cannot be
underestimated. In my own life my eyes
were opened every year when I was a child
when an uncle who was a missionary in
Peru returned with stories of people and
places far outside my world.
He talked of lives and experiences which
were significantly different from my own
and helped to open my eyes to the privileges
I had. These stories served to add to my
determination to try to experience the world
and understand it better. Understand that
we are all different, with different priorities
and needs. Different but equal.
Role models have a vital role to play in
inspiring young people to gain the confidence
to take a leap and explore opportunities
outside of their traditional comfort zones. For
20
INTELLIGENTCIO
Barbara McCarthy, Global CTO at Ding
girls, this means seeing successful women in
traditionally male careers such as sports, the
sciences or technology.
Successful women in technology and the
sciences must be celebrated and brought to
the fore so that they are visible. The good
news is that there is a growing ecosystem of
players committed to the cause, including
organisations whose entire focus is on
women in STEM.
The African Netpreneur Prize (ANPI) is a
great example. Launched in 2018, ANPI
is Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma’s, flagship
entrepreneur programme in Africa, led by
the Jack Ma Foundation. The prize is an
annual competition that sets out in search
of entrepreneurial heros from any of Africa’s
54 countries who have the passion, expertise
and desire to inspire millions of other
ambitious Africans to take the leap and start
their own journey as an entrepreneur.
It awards a share of a cash prize of US$1
million to an Africa entrepreneurial hero
every year for 10 years and, while open to
all, specifically seeks to root out successful
women entrepreneurs and those in the
technology sector.
Previous winners include: Temie Giwa-
Tubosun, Founder and CEO, LifeBank
(Nigeria), who won first prize. LifeBank
uses data and technology to help health
workers discover critical medical products.
The company has saved over 5,300 lives
in Nigeria.
The ecosystem of women in technology
is also being boosted in Africa by women-
focused organisations such as Soronko
Academy – the first coding and human
centred design academy in West Africa. It is
part of a not-for-profit organisation whose
mission is to use technology to drive human
potential. The academy was started to scale
and sustain the impact of a project called
Tech Needs Girls.
Tech Needs Girls is a movement and a
mentorship programme to get more women
and girls to create technology. Its approach
is to teach and encourage women and girls
to lead and innovate through learning to
code. To date, it has trained 4,500 girls and
it has over 200 mentors who are all either
computer scientists or engineers.
They serve as educators and role models,
teaching girls to code – including those from
the slums and ensuring that each girl gets to
go to university instead of being forced into
early marriage, which continues to act as an
enormously damaging social and cultural
practice in some African communities.
“It’s impossible to imagine the future
of science in outer space, or embrace its
challenges, without the talents of women
being at the heart of it”. These powerful
words come from the astrophysicist Ersilia
Vaudo of the European Space Agency.
Placing women front and centre in the
crucial development of technologies,
medicines, engineering and digital
industries means doubling the intellectual
capital in those sectors (which are
dominated by men) and provide women
with unfettered freedom to achieve their
wildest dreams. We at Ding believe we
must do all we can to inspire all women
and girls across the world – on
International Women’s Day and every
other day of the year. n
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