IWD: Digital Inclusion, A Gateway To Achieving Gender Equality

“You cannot innovate if you do not have the diversity of thoughts, diversity of experience, and perspective. Leaders need to cultivate an inclusive environment, so we can innovate and solve the world’s problems”

These are words from Jacky Wright, a former Chief Digital Officer at Microsoft. Now, while they seem like a string of beautiful words, they summarily reflect the impact of inclusion and why it is needed, especially within the Tech industry.

No civilization can advance sustainably without altering and expanding the distribution of options available to men and women, giving them equal opportunities to influence their own lives and make contributions to their families, communities, nations, and the world at large.

The conversation of digital inclusion remains a global subject. With the world fast moving to be a Technology driven one, there has been an increase in the number of opportunities within the industry, and one would expect an increased participation of people within the technology industry to drive that transition. While this has been mostly true, available data suggests that women and girls have been largely excluded from this process.

Statistics show that only between 25 and 30% of the global tech workforce are women. In many societies and contexts where women and girls have worse access to opportunities, skills, mentors, and support, these figures are worse. This ultimately translates to having few women participating in the Tech industry, and many of them not even rising to lead managerial roles within the industry.

Well, the question you may have asked if you got to this point is then “Where does gender equality come into all of this?”

Well, the huge gaps we have so elaborately explained within the tech industry and digital space are significant contributors to the gender quality gaps within the industry. Therefore bridging those gaps and ensuring more women and girls have access to the tech industry, such that they can build successful careers and rise in levels within that industry, addresses the issues of gender equality within that space, and better helps us solve the problems around digital inclusion.

Where do these inequalities really then lie?

The issues of gender inequality in the digital space cum tech industry is a multi-faceted problem that is expressed in many areas, from the lack of opportunities to the lack of skills, pay gap issues, to even social limitations as a result of general ideologies that many tech-related roles “should be” limited to a certain gender. This can be seen in many underdeveloped and developing societies.

Women have lagged behind men in terms of employment opportunities, as demonstrated by the large gap in labor force participation in most countries, as well as wage gaps and occupational sex segregation, which push women toward lower productivity jobs. (The World Bank, 2022)

The Technology industry isn’t left out as we established before now.

From employment gaps to the number of women currently skilled enough to begin their careers within the tech industry, and even those exposed enough to tech to start, we clearly see these gaps and hence, must take a stand and strategize to bridge them.

Why this gap is a huge one that needs to be addressed

• Builds the economic growth and resilience of women
  The skills women and girls build within the Tech industry provide an additional source of income for them to lead economically buoyant and independent lives. As we may know, in today’s world diversification is needed to generate multiple streams of generating income. This is not only beneficial but a top priority in maintaining financial stability for individuals and society. Gone are the times when women had to depend on their husbands, fathers, or brothers to survive, with digital inclusion women have the opportunity to learn skills not just any skills but marketable and high-paying skills. This could be in high-value industries like tech. Consequently, this financial gain allows women more freedom in other aspects of their lives, and helps them independently make decisions that directly affect them, like in cases of their sexual reproductive health, careers, and relationships.
• Enables Women and girls effectively contribute to the growth and development of their world using Tech
  The world is fast moving into being technologically driven, and this means a lot of innovation and solutions are now birthed with the support of tech and other digital infrastructure. When more women and girls are empowered to participate in the tech industry, we see an avalanche of solutions powered by women to contribute to solving many of the world’s problems.
  This is indeed great gain for women, as they are now part of the innovators changing our world for the best, and the society at large, as we then advance towards a world where everyone supports and contributes to the innovation and growth of society.
• Addresses the issues of participation of women and girls in the industry and advances a more gender-equal world
  With digital inclusion, the fight for gender equality will be more effective as there are more and more women entrusted with decision-making responsibilities that they so very excellently carry out. We will have more women and girls empowered with skills and enabled to participate in the tech industry through the direct application of their skills. This also drives us to a more gender-equal world, especially within the tech industry, where regardless of your gender, you are able to effectively contribute to the growth of society.

What’s The Way Forward?

As women and as an organization, this is the question foremost on our minds. What’s the way forward? How can we help? Where do we lend our efforts to continue the fight from where the women before us left off?

For us, at Nsonye, it’s through increasing participation of women and girls in technology. The fight for gender equality before us has produced policies, scholarships, and other programs geared toward improving, recognizing, and highlighting women’s participation in STEM. Their efforts have birthed a global 50% improvement in women’s participation in tech.

However, the work is not done. In Africa, the gap is still a bit wider. In sub-Saharan Africa particularly, the participation percentage is an abysmal 30%. This is where Nsonye is lending her efforts — to educating, training, and sustaining women in tech with high-demand tech skills. We do this with support from many amazing organizations like the Global Youth Mobilization Initiative (GYM). You can find out about what we’ve been doing to help here.

But for this fight, we require more hands, and more effort from organizations and amazing female individuals like you, to help bridge this gap and promote digital inclusion for women and girls.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Nsonye is a non-profit organization working to bridge the tech-gender gap that exists in the tech industry. We do this through our unique model of training via our upskilling programs, mentoring through our one-on-one mentorship sessions and building resilient communities that encourage women and girls thrive within tech.

Interested in what we do? Send us an email today to donate or further our impact at hello@nsonye.org.

Looking for a #womenintech community to grow in and get exposed to opportunities to get started within tech? Then join us on our slack channel here.

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