Promoting Technology and Innovation for a Gender-Equal Future | What can be done by the African and global communities ?

Technology and digital inclusion for the equal future.

In the past 5 or so years I have had the privilege to work with girls and women in technology and business as their tech, business and personal development mentor or trainer, and this has given me first hand into the reality that girls and women outside my reality face everyday.

There is a day I met one of my favorite young girls, I had not seen her for years, she is still young and as energetic, smart, humble and insightful as usual, she said something that broke my heart “ I’m conflicted in being who I am, because outside my house, I know I can do anything, I break every set rules against my being a girl, I innovate, I champion for equality, I know I have infinite possibilities but inside my home, I am not to alter anything of that sort, I will never be like my brothers nor should I dream above what my father believes”. It broke my heart because the future I see in her is greater than her, it’s not just for her, it’s for her family, her community and the nation, I was heartbroken because I never lived to feel as such.

And this is the reality that many girls and women in technology, in business, in leadership or in any areas that was once believed not to be for them feel and face, I face that sometimes.

I must admit, I have always been on the privilege compared to others, I have grown in a very supportive family, I have gone to girl schools where leadership, ownership and inserting your personality were highly encouraged, I have studied in universities where I was among the 2 girls in class, I have worked in the space where ambitious women are considered a threat, weird breed and respected, admired and supported.

I want every other girl to have the kind of privilege that will accelerate their work. Having worked with international organizations and local organizations, championed initiatives to support girls and women, I have come to also understand that “ support system’ is very important to achieve equality and progress in any system.

With SheFound, I have come to realise that those women whose families, husbands or friends provide support systems, have thriving businesses, their growth is constantly accelerating and they always upgrade for their upcoming environments.

Deep Dive

I have had the pleasure of working with many players within the innovation and technology space here in Tanzania.

Through My past works with Help to Help, Apps & Girls, and Sahara Ventures, I championed;

• Upskilling young women on technology for employability and business
• Increased the number of women participating in the innovation and technology platforms like Sahara Sparks, through creating incentives and partnerships that support that.
• Advocated for women in technology and innovation to get both learning and financial support & investment.
• Upskilling girls and women on digital skills and technology for personal development and opportunity creation

I’m currently doing what I love most, being an entrepreneur, and supporting women entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises thrive within and beyond their normal markets, through SheFound where we focus on advocacy for economic growth of girls and women, upskilling of women entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises, providing technical support for women entrepreneurs and create market access opportunities and platforms for women-led businesses and women entrepreneurs in Tanzania and in emerging economies.

Through My work at the moment with SheFound, Girls Next Door, and the works I do at a personal level, I have been;

• Working with women entrepreneurs towards their personal exponential growth and women leaders towards a profitable growth of their entities.
• Advocating for financial and digital inclusion for women entrepreneurs, and women-led tech startups
• Pushing for market access and marketing of women-led businesses on different platforms and working with the entrepreneurs to know different ways they can access a global market for their tech startups.
• Giving technical support to over 50 women-led businesses to grow their businesses through already easily available resources and digital tools.
• Training over 400 girls and women on digital skills for employment and for business.
• Producing technology for business resources for over 1000 women entrepreneurs across the continent.

From my work within Tanzania and the lessons I have learned from my colleagues working with girls and women across Africa, I would humbly recommend the following for the regional and glocal community;

• Systemic Inclusive programs and projects.

We need more inclusive campaigns and projects around gender inclusion and gender main streaming. We need to structure our work in such, it includes a society that dwells with girls and women to understand that empowerment of women and girls is not equal to the failure of others.

It’s important to remember that for the effeorts to succeeed, we need everyone on board and out of the boat to acknowledge and agree with the importance of investing in girls and women empowerment for us to have a functioning society.

• Clear ecosystem and anchor for women and girls in the space.

Things work within an ecosystem of different players working together to push a certain agenda.

There is yet to be a clear and intentional effort of players within the ecosystem to have gender mainstreaming in their programs and initiatives and to form a clear pipeline of support within the space for the girls and women in it.

We need to invest in creating a clear support system for women-led technology and innovative initiatives collectively and clearly communicate it. Find what is the anchor and the pipeline that works within your region for the development of women and girls and their works in the tech space.

• Embrace digital economy.

If there is something that can level the playing field is digital economy, instead of focusing on regulating, let’s focus on creating an encouraging environment for technology adaption, innovation and digital economy to thrive and creating frameworks that monitor and guide the future they bring.

We need to embrace the digital economy with openness and invest in projects that accelerate girls and women in participating in activities encouraged by the digital economy.

• Embrace the reality of technology and innovation for our good.

One thing about technology it’s exponential and this is because of innovation and ever changing needs and realities of human beings and their environments.

We need to understand technology and innovation are long-term games, it’s not business as usual, the frameworks we put should be inclusive today and flexible enough to be inclusive tomorrow. And they should be independent enough since, tech driven anything disrupts.

It’s important that as a continet we don’t face technology as a threat or as a source of income, rather as a field-leveling agent of change to create new markets, new employments and new possibilities for our generations.

• Increase funding for female-led startups and SMEs

The world is changing fast, Africa is the only continent whose economy rests in the shoulders of SMEs of which 50% plus are women-owned and are always doomed to fail. In the innovation and tech space the VC and equity funding for female-led startups are even lower and numbers of success are embrassingly low.

We need to create new investment corridors and scaling/growth-driven environments to allow and ease the growth of women-led tech and innovative enterprises. Because by numbers until now women get less than 10% if not 5% of the investment in the innovation and technology spaces.

It’s important to have seed and scalling funding for female-led startups, because most of them create startups that focus on solving a social problem, they create distruptive markets that can open new value markets for more women-led startups and they encourage narrowing of the gender gap in the tech and innovation space.

• Customized digital skills and technology adaption programs.

It’s no secret that the reality of a girl or woman in rural or semi-urban regions of any developing or emerging economy is completely different from that of those in urban.

So, it’s important to understand the use of technology for girls and women in rural areas and those in urban areas are different, so tailor programs that accelerate adoption of technology in accordance to the landscape of their environment.

• Affordable inclusive education.

While there is still a gender gap in accessing formal education within most Africa regions, with the fast changing world and acceleration digital adaption, we need to encourage more girls and women enrolled in programs and informal & formal education arounddigital skills, information and technology.

We also need to encourage the use of already free existing digital platforms to provide gender main streamed digital skills and technology adaption awareness campaigns that speak to the reality of the local landscapes.

• Easy and Affordable internet access and access to digital tools and platforms.

While internet acccess gap is still huge even in urban areas in Tanzania and many other African countries, there is an even bigger need to create an environment that encourages internet access and digital tools access to girls and women in semi-urban and rural areas.

This will reduce the gap exicsting between classes of the same group but also allow women and girls in these areas have an equal playing ground with the rest in the globe.

There is a lot more I would love to say, but if you leave with nothing from me, leave with this, for any socio-economic development to happen in any region in Africa or the continent at large today, technology, innovation and women inclusion can never be separated. And that these things should not be regulated, rather creating an encouraging environment for them to thrive and creating frameworks that monitor and guide the future they bring.

This is inspired by the question I was asked during an event prepared by UNWomen Tanzania and AWLN and other development partners on promoting women-led technology and innovation for gender-equal future.

Qnt: How are you leading the way to advance women-led technology and innovation for digital inclusion in Tanzania, and what can the national and global community learn from your initiatives?

About me: Vanessa is an entrepreneur, a tech and business anthropologist, writer, speaker and impact catalyst working in the innovation and technology entrepreneurship space in Africa. She is a founder of itravelar and SheFound and host at The Bliss Show.