The International Women’s Day is a global day that celebrates the social economic, cultural and political achievements of women all over the world. It occurs 8th of March every year and it began in 1911. It is supported by over a million people around the world. The theme for this year’s IIWD is tagged ‘Better the balance, better the world’. The theme is just to advocate for a gender-balanced world, because balance drives a better working system.
According to statistics by PWC in 2017, 3% of females consider a first choice career in technology, only 16% of women have had a career in technology suggested to them. 78% of students can’t name a famous female working in technology and only 5% of leadership positions in the technology sector are held by women.
However, despite the low turnout in the sector, some amazing women are impacting lives in technology. It is these amazing African women that we want to celebrate today.
Funke Opeke
Founder Main Street Technologies and CEO of MainOne Cable Company
Born in the 70’s in Ibadan Nigeria, Funke Opeke is the founder of Main Street Technologies and CEO of MainOne Cable Company. She obtained her Bachelor and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife and Columbia University respectively. She pursued a career in ICT in the US as an executive director under the wholesale division of Verizon Communications in New York City after graduation. She joined MTN Nigeria in 2005, as Chief Technical Officer (CTO), later served as an adviser in Transcorp and as Chief Operating Officer of NITEL.
Funke Opeke started MainOne in 2008 when she noticed the low internet connectivity in Nigeria. MainOne is a service and network solutions provider in West Africa. It is West Africa’s first privately owned, open access 7000-kilometer undersea high capacity cable submarine. It covers Portugal to South Africa with lands along the route in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria.
Mariéme Jamme
Founder of iConscience, IAMTHECODE, JJiguene Tech Hub in Senegal, Co-founder- Africa Gathering and Accur8Africa, CEO of SpotOne Global Solutions
Mariéme Jamme was born in Dakar Senegal, her mother gave her away at an early an early stage and she grew up in various foster homes and orphanages. She didn’t have a pleasant childhood—her early years were plagued with abuse and she also didn’t have any formal education until 16 when she taught herself to read and write. She is an award-winning Technologist and a BBC 100 Women nominee. She has been named twice on the UK Powerlist 2017 and 2018 of Britain’s 100 most influential people of African and African Caribbean Heritage.
Over the years, she has supported and advised many organizations such as Google, Ernest and Young, Microsoft, UN Women, Unilever, Legatum Institute, HSBC Private Banking, The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, The Africa Progress Panel chaired by Kofi Annan, The Obama Administration, DOW Chemical, the Argentine Government and multiple African governments.
Her initiative, Africa Gathering is a platform in Europe that enable businesses, governments, investors and entrepreneurs to share ideas about Africa for positive change. Accur8Africa aims at enabling governments, businesses, entrepreneurs and the civil society in Africa at measuring the success of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 with Accurate Data. Spotone Global Solutions helps technology companies to set a foothold in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. IAMTHECODE aims at mobilizing governments, businesses and investors to support girls and young women in STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, and Design). Her goal is to empower 1 million young women and girls globally to become coders by 2030 and to align with the United Nations 2030 Agenda. JJiguene Tech Hub in Senegal is the first women Tech Innovation Network supporting young women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s (STEM).
Judith Owigar
Co-founder AkiraChix and Founder Juakali Workforce
Judith Owigar was born in Nairobi Kenya. She got her Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Computer science in the University of Nairobi. She was among the few women who offered ICT in her class, and it is the need to make a difference that fueled her passion in technology. She serves in the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) board, the Lumen Labs board, the Africa WeTech (Women Enhancing Technology) Leadership Council and the St. George’s Primary School Alumni Association. In 2012, she was listed among CNN’s African Voices.
AkiraChix is an organization that trains women to use technology for innovations in Africa. Launched in 2010 alongside Angela Lungati, Linda Kamau and Marie Githinji, the platform allows girls from low income areas learn softwares, coding programs, explore graphics and app development for free. Juakali Workforce, a platform that addresses the challenge of growing youth unemployment and improve livelihoods of skilled manual laborers in Kenya.
See also: MasterCard, Angaza Expands QR Code Payment Technology to Africa
Rebecca Enonchong
Founder/CEO AppsTech
Born in 1967 in Cameroon. Rebecca Enonchong is a Cameroon-born technology entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of AppsTech. She moved to the US with her family in her teens where she attended the Catholic University of America and graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics. Enonchong has spent much of her career promoting technology in Africa. She has carried out the work in both the U.S. and in Africa. She was the founder and Chairperson of the Africa Technology Forum, a non-profit platform dedicated to helping technology startups in Africa. Enonchong is a recipient of many awards.
AppsTech is a leading global provider of enterprise application solutions that offers a full spectrum of products and services to serve all enterprise software requirements, from architecting a solution, license sales, implementation, integration, training and application management services. Founded in 1999, AppsTech opened offices in several countries, including Cameroon.
Clarisse Iribigiza
CEO and Co-founder of HeHelabs (now DMM.HeHe)
Born January 28, 1988, Clarisse Iribigiza is a Rwandan business woman whose idea started forming at the University of Rwanda’s College of Science and Technology, where she studied Computer engineering. This was after a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) incubation program where she was able to groom what she was learning in school to how she could immediately apply it in the real world.
Founded in 2010, HeHelabs (now DMM.HeHe), is a leading technology company that develops innovative technologies that allows businesses to optimize their operations and reach more customers anywhere and on the go. The platform serves over 2 million users across Africa, allowing businesses offer their products and services on-demand whilst guaranteeing great customer experience.
Odunayo Eweniyi
Co-founder PushCV and Piggybank
Odunayo Eweniyi is a graduate of Computer Science from Covenant University. She is a tech writer and is the Chief Operations Officer at Sharphire Global Limited, the parent company of internet Start-ups PushCV, Piggybank and FrontDesk.
PushCV was founded in February 2014, a platform of pre-screened candidates in Africa. It provides a platform where only the best candidates are connected to top employers and recruiters. She got an office space in Yaba and an investment of $25000 dollars from Olumide Soyombo’s Leadpath Nigeria. Piggybank was founded in 2016 in the bid to help people who got jobs on PushCV save their salaries. The platform saved 26 million Naira in 2016 and almost 1 billion naira by the end of 2017.
Teresa Mbagaya
Co-founder Bidii Children Foundation
Teresa Mbagaya is an enterprising woman from Zimbabwe but was born in Nairobi Kenya. Born in 1990, Teresa has a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University. She attended London school of Economics and Political Science. She also has a certificate in Advanced Arabic from SIT Graduate Institute in Washington DC. Teresa Mbagaya is passionate and driven about education technology, she received notable awards and scholarships for being enthusiastic in the grounds she cares about.
She was one of the youngest of 15 Google Reach participant selected from over 250 global participants to take part in a leadership development assignment in India in 2012. In October 2015, she was named as one of the most 30 Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa by Forbes Magazine. Teresa was nominated recently for The Future Awards Africa Person of the Year, 2015. Founded in 2006, Teresa Co-founded Bidii Children Foundation — a non-profit platform that is dedicated to promoting education in the rural area of Bungoma; a district in Western Kenya.
Catherine Mahugu
Founder Soko and Chiswara
Catherine Mahugu is a Kenya-born, award-winning entrepreneur, a software engineer by profession and change maker by passion. Catherine is a certified human-centered design expert, a skill she acquired at Stanford University. She has been involved in various ICT for Development projects. An UNCTAD and Alibaba eFounder fellow, Queen’s Young Leaders advisory mentor, International Telecom Union (ITU) Innovators fellow, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs, a World Bank Fellow through infoDev and an Ashoka-American Express Emerging innovator fellow.
Catherine is the founder of Chiswara (www.chiswara.com). Chiswara is an e-commerce that offers a more equitable coffee experience by selling specialty Kenyan coffee to the international market. She also founded Soko, a fashion brand that expands access to economic opportunity for artisans in emerging economies. Vogue and Glamour magazines have previously featured Soko products. Celebrities such as Michelle Obama, Lupita Nyongo, Nicole Kidman, Oprah Winfrey and Emma Watson have also been styled with Soko’s jewelry. She has been featured in Forbes Magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs, by BBC as one of the top 100 amongst other platforms.
Kate Quartey-Papafio
Founder and CEO of Reroy Cables
Kate Quartey-Papafio is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Reroy Cables ltd, which is one of the leading manufacturers of electrical cables in Ghana, 1992. Reroy manufactures electrical and telecom cables and conductors mainly for the international market but also has a significant domestic presence as well. The company has a work force of over 100 people and started operations in 2003. It exports mostly to countries in the ECOWAS sub-region. The company has the largest Electrical Cables Manufacturing Plant in Ghana.
Europe Business Assembly awarded the company the best enterprise award for being a leader of the cable manufacturing industry in Africa in 2016 and In October 2014, she was named Marketing Woman of the Year 2013 by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) at the same event, and a few weeks later in December, she won the entrepreneurship category at the first Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah African Genius Awards. In the same year Reroy was also announced as the manufacturing company of the year at the National Marketing Awards, organized by the CIMG. Other achievements
Ire Aderiokun
UI/UX Designer and Front-End Developer
Ire Aderinokunis is a Lagos based self-taught UI/UX designer and front-end developer. She is the Technical Lead at Big Cabal Media, and also holds Project Management, Design, and Front-End Development roles. She has degrees in Experimental Psychology and Law. Ire started her blog, bitsofcode in 2015 where she writes weekly articles on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Over the years, she has contributed over 70 articles and video tutorials to the development community. She is an advocate for open source and sharing within the ecosystem.