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Friday, 24 March 2017
9 of the Most Powerful Women in African Tech
As the nation celebrated International Women’s Day earlier this month
it is imperative that we recognise women for their achievements not
only that but also celebrate their contribution in the world of
technology. With gender diversity especially in ICT being an ongoing
challenge, women have to constantly prove their capabilities and
strengths. More women are providing ideas that are disruptive and use
these to make meaningful change in people’s lives .
Women have confidently made their mark in a fast-paced, ever-evolving
sector and they continue to empower other women as they move along the
corporate ladder. Organisations such as the Ghana Code Club a volunteer
led, after-school digital fun club that equips children between the ages
of 8-17 years with coding skills is one distinct example. This initiate
is run by Erestina Appiah who is the founder and a leader in the IT
sector Let’s take a look at some of the women, listed on Women in Tech
Africa, who continue to be pioneers in this ever growing fast-paced
industry.
Olatorera Oniru, Nigeria
Olatorera Oniru born in 1987 is a young entrepreneur who founded
Dressmeoutlet.com, a Lagos-based e-commerce startup that retails fashion
products sourced from across the globe. Olatorera also founded
Nigeria’s leadership program Top 100 Our Generation, in 2007; a company
that brought together and inspired many of today’s young leaders.
Olatorera flourished her career working for two Fortune Top 5 companies
namely Bank of America Merrill Lynch and General Electric. She also
worked for one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, Lars
Magnus Ericsson, as a global consultant and later as Head of Sales
Governance.
Nneka Offor, Nigeria
Nneka Offor is the founder of SkillBoox; an online learning marketplace
that is focused on creating courses for personal, professional and
employ-ability skills development. With the emergence of Mobile Learning
Technology (MLT), SkillBoox addresses the need for improved performance
by providing on-the-go affordable, effective and self-paced eLearning.
Prior to SkillBoox, She worked as a Business Development Officer in a
facility management company where she participated actively as projects
team member to improve efficiency, reduce costs and assist in
improvement of services through customer experiences.
Dr Chao Mbogo, Kenya
Dr. Chao graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University
of Cape Town in December 2015. She contributes to IT through academia,
her research focuses on supporting learners from resource-constrained
environments, to learn programming on their mobile phones. She was a
recipient of the Schlumberger Faculty for the Future award in 2015 and
was also selected as one of 200 young researchers worldwide in
Mathematics and Computer Science. Dr. Chao was also one of the winners
of the 2014 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.
Heather Beem, Ghana
Heather holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. During her time in graduate school and at
D-Lab, she developed a passion for STEM education and indigenous
innovation. At D-Lab, she co-founded and co-instructed D-Lab: Education
in addition to mentoring students from other D-Lab classes. While at
MIT, she began developing the Practical Education Network (PEN) with a
team of fellow students and others. Heather has been leading PEN in
their pursuit of scaling experiential learning in resource-limited
settings. She has worked with hundreds of students and teachers from
Boston to Ghana to Peru.
Nisha Maharaj, South Africa
Founder of Niche Integrated Solutions, an ICT solutions company that
brings innovative solutions to Africa, Nisha Maharaj is a South African
tech entrepreneur. Niche Intergrated Solutions provides software
solutions, ICT managed services and Training. Nisha has accumulated
service record of 20 years working experience within South Africa’s
major listed companies ranging from the top four banking and financial
services companies, to the telecommunications sector – of which more
than 14 years she served at either executive management, general
management or COO level. She is the Ernst and Young Entrepreneurial
Winning Women Class of 2015.
Ernestina Appiah, Ghana
Ernestina Appiah is a 38 year-old social entrepreneur and the founder of
the Ghana Code Club an after school activity program being organized in
all basic schools in Ghana for children between the ages of 9-18. The
NGO works with ICT teachers from each school by creating projects and
training them to meet goals and objectives. These projects teach
children how to program by example showing them how to make computer
games, animations and websites. Ernestina was listed on BBC
inspirational women for 2015. She worked as a secretary for an IT firm
and that is where her love for IT began. With little finance and
resilience Ernestina decided to get in touch with a web designer who for
a small fee introduced her to basics of HTML . She eventually
registered her NGO Healthy Career Initiative in 2007.
Rahmat Lasisi, Nigeria
Nigerian born and raised, Rahmat Lasisi is the co-founder of and Chief
Technical Officer of Dexterity Solutions based in Lagos Nigeria. Rahmat
Lasisi is a graduate of Computer Science from Lagos state University.
Dexterity Solutions is a custom software service firm. Their specialties
are bespoke applications, mobile applications, web applications,
interactive web design and development, POS applications, online
learning platform, ICT empowerment and Capacity Building.
Omnia Shawkat, South Sudan
Omnia Shawkat is a co-founder of Andariyya a bilingual digital cultural
magazine on Sudan and South Sudan. During 2012 and 2013 Omnia conducted
an on-the-ground exploration of the Sudanese cultural scene that was
then complemented by a survey of Sudanese blogs to study whether the
richness of Sudan’s cultural diversity was justly reflected online.
Mathebe Molise, South Africa
Mathebe is the founder and CEO of BeautyonTApp an application that
enables individuals to find beauty services and products in their area.
The application seeks to empower skilled individuals with beauty
businesses who may not have the capital or know how to grow their beauty
businesses. Mathebe is a qualified Charted Accountant and served as a
committee member on the African Women Chartered Accountants (AWCA) Power
Tea committee from 2013 to 2015. Mathebe was recently invited to
represent AWCA on the SAICA Legal and Compliance Committee as of May
2015 and currently serves this committee.
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