Tapping the reservoir of tech talent in Africa

Aileen Allkins of Tek Experts and Elev8 sets out some of the work that her organisation is doing to bring tech career opportunities to women and girls in Rwanda, Nigeria and Costa Rica.

On International Women's Day, Computing is celebrating some of the people and programmes helping women to overcome the digital aspects of the gender divide and develop tech careers in countries where women have historically faced limited opportunities.

It's been more than a decade since Hillary Clinton said that, "Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world," yet the reservoir remains full to the brim. According to this recent report from the UN on progress towards its SDGs, the digital gender gap has removed $1 trillion from the GDP of low and middle income countries over the last decade, and that loss will grow for as long as the gender gaps persists.

There are many organisations dedicated to closing the global digital gender gap. Various NGOs such as Harambee, The World Bank, and many European countries provide funding to towards sustainability and skilling in emerging markets. This activity is all about extracting value from untapped labour. It's not selfless, and it certainly provides opportunities for tech giants to laud their Equity credentials but these programmes should nonetheless be viewed through a lens of optimism.

Change for the better

Tech talent solutions provider, Tek Experts works with Microsoft to deliver Leap, a programme that has been transforming the lives of individuals in regions previously overlooked by the technology industry such as Rwanda, Nigeria and Bulgaria. The company has considerable expertise in digital skilling, career mapping and the needs of the tech industry so is well equipped to lead a training programme,

Leap is a 16-week course, where candidates graduate from a classroom environment to real world scenarios and live projects. 98% of participants secure employment after graduation, and Leap has been successful at supporting women into employment, thanks to its offer of mentorship and sponsorship support.

Aileen Allkins, Chief Revenue Officer at Tek Experts and Elev8, commented on the programme.

"Microsoft funds it. We take in women into this four-month training programme, upskilling them. Everyone that we put through the leap programme, we end up employing subject to their suitability. I was in Nigeria in July, and we were doing a roundtable with colleagues from the programme and there were so many tears. It's very emotional. Very often it's not about money for them, it's about money for families. There is so much gratitude for the opportunity.

"You actually can see the impact that you're having. In Nigeria, we've over 30% of our technical workforce is now women. We pay particular attention to trying to get more women because we know it creates a much better environment in the office and we get great service. In Rwanda, we're at about 50% women and in our site in Vietnam, we've got with 50% women there as well. It is possible!"

Elev8 has also collaborated with the Costa Rican Ministry of Labour and Social Security to support a programme called Empléate.

The programme reskills and upskills the workforce of Costa Rica to equip them with the digital skills they need for a successful career in the tech industry.

"Costa Rica is a very hospitality-based economy and a lot of people became unemployed because of the pandemic," Allkins explains. "Of course, a big portion of those in that sector were women. So the government has funded unemployed people between the ages of 17 and 50 into skilling programmes which we run in collaboration with AWS. We train them for four months on content sponsored by AWS and at the end of the four-month period, our job is to help them find work. About 50% of the people coming through the programme are women."

The 16-week course is delivered virtually and covers areas such as cybersecurity, advanced technical support, cloud computing, and software development. The programme also helps participants refine broader skills, including communication and self-promotion, and it includes access to assistance with interview preparation, as well as English language classes.

Allkins also speaks warmly of a women-only programme in Rwanda.

"In Rwanda we have a really lovely programme, a very specific programme where we're hiring ladies into technical positions, many of them from difficult backgrounds. They go through a training programme sponsored by organisations like the German Agency for International Co-operation, like Harambee. who focus on providing employability skills that will get them into technical work, and we're giving them the foundations that then enable them to grow their career in tech.

"The beautiful thing about it is because of COVID the world has opened up so much more to remote working. These girls are now serving customers across the world in a technical capacity which is an opportunity that would never have existed three, four or five years ago. "

Gender parity in Africa tech

This is why the activities of western governments and tech companies in Africa should be viewed through a lens of goodwill. Even though the tech employers and wider economies will benefit from training women, their activities are still improving women's lives, making them and their families wealthier and healthier. As Allkins says:

"There are billions of dollars being spent on skilling for employment. It's all about getting people into better paid jobs. It reduces crime. It creates more wealth but it isn't about making people rich. It's about affordability of food and clothing for families. The impact of getting one person in a family into a decent job is what this is all about."

Allkins also points out that these programmes are delivering gender parity to tech employers in African countries, which is something that tech employers in the UK, US and Europe continue to fall short of.

"I think other countries are making more progress than some in the US and UK. I see much more progress in Costa Rica for example where half the people that come in our employability programmes are women. Companies there are running programmes for women in tech. I see practical things happening with results.

"If this can be done in Costa Rica or Nigeria, why can it not be done here?"

Why indeed.

#EmbraceEquity

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