TechSis 2023, a GetBundi Education Foundation Initiative to Train 500 African Women in Coding For Free

TechSis is an initiative of Getbundi Education Foundation to support women and girls education in tech and its maiden edition will be in coding.

The tech industry is no doubt a male-dominated career area across the world, and Africa is no exception. Research reveals that only 30% of African women make up the tech industry, which signifies that they are highly underrepresented.

Some of these reasons range from gender discrimination, to work culture in jobs or industries, which is a global issue but highly pronounced in Africa.

Despite the overwhelming percentage of women in the African continent, available data reveals that only very few are in the digital and technology space compared to men. In Nigeria for instance, women in the tech space make up only about 22 percent of the industry workforce.

Unfortunately, bias and stereotypes have continued to pose obstacles to women being properly represented in the technology industry. Women often face an uphill battle of being viewed as less competent, compared to their male counterparts despite having the same level of qualifications and experience.
This has even transcended to women being reluctant to take up tech-related degrees or any tech-related skills, which has seen males form the overwhelming majority of many tech companies.

Hence, with this, women in Sub-Saharan Africa have a high risk of missing out on the jobs of the future. The majority of the region’s women, therefore, risk exclusion from the digital economy because they are under-represented in tech-related fields.

This female digital exclusion, a phenomenon where women and girls are disproportionately left behind in accessing and using digital technologies and services, is a pervasive problem hindering the realization of a fully inclusive digital future.

Due to the under-representation of women in the tech scene in Africa, several initiatives and programs have sprung up to get more women and girls into tech careers to bridge the digital skill gender inequality. These programs are aimed at bridging the divide and preparing women to assume their rightful place at the heights of the new economy.

With technology rapidly developing, this is an excellent time for the female gender to hone their digital skills and make their mark in the world of tech, which is dominated by the men known as the “tech bros”. It is high time we also have “tech sis” who will make remarkable giant strides in the tech industry.

In fact, few women in the industry have shown that they can match up with their male counterparts and even outperform them, as they have proven to bring a fresh approach and offer unique perspectives to meet challenges, solve problems, and design new products. It might interest you to know that researchers found that codes written by women are approved at a higher rate than codes written by men.

An intrinsic part of tech is breaking boundaries and presenting new ideas to the world, so having women properly represented in this area is particularly important.

One remarkable startup that is currently playing a pivotal role in bridging this divide in Africa is GetBundi, a government-approved Educational Technology platform that teaches STEM-related and Digital skills courses to equip anyone with 21st century job ready skills.

The startup seeks to support 500 African women who are 18 and above to learn coding which is a top-demand skill for free, to enable them to be well-positioned to take up well-paying jobs thereby creating a source of income for themselves. Through this initiative, women and girls will get to learn programming languages such as JavaScript, Ethical Hacking, Python, and Scratch.

To ensure the effective inclusion of women in the tech sector, the TechSis initiative will be organized yearly by the GetBundi Foundation in different areas of digital skills. With GetBundi’s initiative to teach females coding, it will undoubtedly impact the inclusion of more girls and women in the technology sector in Africa. GetBundi Education Foundation would issue a press release in April to kickstart the “TechSis 2023” project.

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