OUR QUARTER-ONE REVIEW: Achievements, Growth, and Events.
The beginning of April marked the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter of the year, 2023. At the beginning of this year, one thing we planned to do was set goals for Nsonye and stay accountable to them with quarterly reviews. Our quarterly reviews are documentation of what we’ve achieved to keep us accountable for our goals. At the same time, we hope they also motivate you to stick to yours.
Here was how it went.
Achievements and Impact
The first quarter of 2023 was a busy and exciting one for us. We started hosting many interesting events and activities with significant reach and impact. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve achieved in the first quarter
Community Growth
The Nsonye community we’re building is a core part of our organization’s mission and so we’re stoked that our community across the board grew in great leaps and bounds in the first quarter. We went from 817 community members at the beginning of the year to 1897 members by the end of the quarter, recording a whopping growth of about 130%!
We’re so happy about this because we’re seeing our goals come true in real-time and also because of the visibility and support it provides. Not only are we growing in numbers, but we’re also growing in engagements and this is awesome because community members can ask for and receive support. If you’ve not yet joined our community on Slack, that’s your sign to join us.
Beyond the numbers, the significance of this growth is that we are able to reach more women and girls who need resources, mentorship, and a community to start successful careers within the tech industry and go ahead to build-up themselves within the industry.
Partnerships
One of the things we’re so proud of this quarter is the partnerships we fostered with two great organizations — Propel and ALX. With the Propel partnership, the goal is to improve visibility and increase internship and job opportunities for our community members. We are excited to enable more women and girls to not only transition into Tech but begin successful careers through the job opportunities they will access from this platform. To be a part of it, sign up to Propel and join our community on the platform. We can’t wait to see you win there!
Our ALX partnership allowed our members to access ALX’s programs in the month of March for FREE. This marked a new beginning for many of our community members, who have now been accepted into different tracks of the ALX program to learn and become equipped with high-end skills relevant to the tech industry. Check out more about these opportunities here.
Learning resources and program support
This was a new activity we adopted in the first quarter, to provide learning resources for members of our community and other women and girls who are not able to afford resources and devices to continue their learning journey. In the first quarter, we supported 54 women and girls with a laptop, MIFI and internet provision devices, course subscriptions, and data subscriptions. Check out Taiwo’s story, the winner of the laptop category of our international women’s day learning resources program.
While we will continue providing this support in the second quarter and through the year, we also solicit your support to enable us to reach more women and girls. Send us an email to know more about how we can collaborate on this, or send in your donations to support our mission to enable more African women and girls to participate in the Tech industry.
Highlights and Recognition
Last year, we announced that Nsonye got two grants from the Global Youth Mobilization (GYM) Fund in their local solutions category and their accelerator program which housed some of the best projects from the local and national projects they funded. We’re back to celebrate our organization being highlighted at the Global Youth Mobilization Fund’s two year anniversary event.
Team Expansion
Our team has expanded to meet our growing needs and the needs of our community members. From a core team of four members, we’ve expanded to building smaller in-house teams to tackle the different areas of Nsonye’s administration and activities. Our expanded teams are made up of volunteers who believe in the Nsonye dream just as much as we do, and as excited as we are to have them onboard, we’re even happier to see our former students and program participants be a part of this endeavor. It tells us that not only are they beneficiaries, but that they believe in our mission enough to be a part of it and help others. We consider it a win, so thank you to all our volunteers, we appreciate you!
Activities & Events
In our first quarter, we had quite the rundown of activities and events which had over 5500 participants. While we are thrilled about the successful implementation of our programs and events, we are particularly more excited at the turnout and immense reach the activities had.
In the first quarter, we were also able to celebrate two global events in our first quarter. One was the Love Data Week hosted by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) from Feb 13 to Feb 17. This year, the theme for #LoveData23 was Data: Agent of Change, and via our poll on Twitter, we were able to see how data has changed the game for people in tech. You can find highlights from the event here.
Our second global event was International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrated globally on March 8th. In commemoration, we held a virtual conference and panel session to talk about Digital inclusion as a gateway to gender equality. The highlight of this event was the panel session and the amazing speakers we had. If you missed it, here’s a playback you can watch.
We also hosted some in-house community events which were geared toward adding more value to our community members and expanding their skill sets with relevant tech skills in the industry and their knowledge of diverse tech topics through our monthly town halls. Some of them were masterclasses for the data analytics and technical writing tracks within our community, and our inaugural Peer Accountability Program.
Q1 is done, what next?
Nsonye is very interested and committed to the growth of its community members as well as other women and girls looking to transition and build successful careers within the tech industry. We encourage them, provide information on the opportunities they can explore within the industry, and support them with our activities and resources.
Q1 was an absolute delight. The experiences, activities, and achievements were amazing to witness, and the growth of our community members was the icing on our cake. However, Q1 is just the beginning of the many things we have planned to do this year, and we hope to do even more with your support and that of our community.
Cheers to an amazing Q2!
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 to thrive within tech.
Interested in what we do? Send us an email today at hello@nsonye.org or donate to further our impact.
Are you 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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