NGO: More awareness needed to enable women, girls access tech opportunities

Amrah Aliyu, team lead of Salma Attah Foundation, a non-profit organisation, says getting women and girls to access digital technology and innovative opportunities in Nigeria is challenging.

Speaking on Tuesday at a two-day programme organised as part of the activities of International Women’s Day (IWD), Aliyu said women are being left behind in the area of digital technology in the country.

The programme was organised in partnership with Wisdom ICT Solutions to train women and girls in digital technology.

She said the technology space is dominated by men, adding that more awareness should be created to get more women involved in tech.

“Women are being left behind when it comes to tech, graphic designs and data analytics, and that is why you will see more men engaged in all of these careers,” she said.

“We want them to be able to work even as married women, they could from their houses work and become independent. We have seen a lot of situations where people say tech is not for the girl, even in the political space, where we have the number, women participation is poor.

“In Nigeria, why don’t we have more women in politics than men? It is because they are not informed. We are being raised to see that politics is a man’s business, and joining tech is a man’s business, so we are trying to remove that thought from their minds so that they can excel even better than men, that way, they can vie for politics careers even at their school level.

“Women are not informed because even at the application stage for this Girls Code Booth Camp programme, we had to keep sending the link for women to apply. We posted on all our social media pages but they were not aware, they are not seeing these opportunities and it could be because of their interest.

“Women are seen to be more fashionable, they are more interested in seeing more of fashion or marriage stuff, I feel like the whole idea of women not engaged in tech is more about the opportunities not getting to them. How do you take advantage of the opportunities if you don’t even see them? that is why knowledge is power.

“The first thing is information, we have the numbers and so opportunities should get to us. This is why more awareness needs to be created to get more women involved in tech.”