Ani Akpe, founder of African Women in Technology, has been working hard empowering African women with skills in technology for over 10 years and has been able to assist over 20,000 African women with the necessary resources and access.
“I formed African Women in Technology 10 years ago to meet the gap, I found that women didn’t have enough skills building, resources and access. So, within the past 10 years, we formed a partnership with Cisco where women are able to learn at self-paced digital skill building such as AI, cyber security, coding,” Akpe said during an interview with Gulf Times at the ongoing Web Summit Qatar.
Akpe, attending Web Summit Qatar for the second time, feels that Qatar is a great place to attend the Web Summit and said: “I have attended Web Summits at the other places. But I feel that the Qatar government really cares about startups and they are creating infrastructure and programmes that supports startups. I am planning to attend the next Web Summit in Qatar”.
Akpe stated that the organisation is working in Kenya and Nigeria, and has held events in Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria.
“These are the countries we have been to. But the other countries are open to join. Overall, we have trained over 20,000 women in the past 10 years. What that has done for us is that it allowed these women who started with us 10 years ago. They’re now pillars in society. They’ve been featured in Forbes. They’re running their own organisations. They are creating other projects that has impacted their communities,” she said.
“We also have a partnership with Zoho, where women are able to come in and learn how to run their businesses efficiently using Zoho system for startups. Part of the reason why we built these systems is that women, whether they’re in Africa, USA, wherever they are, have the ability to log in and learn,” said Akpe.
According to Akpe, the organisation’s main focus is letting women know they are capable of doing it. “It is to let women know that within your sphere and within things that you can control, your lifestyle, your marriage, whatever the case may be. Maybe, it is just helping your children learn because you are learning that you have the ability to learn these things at a pace that is comfortable for you.”
Akpe highlighted that these women have become career women and currently own businesses and they still continue to use technology in its many facets.
“Because we launched African Women in Tech, we learned those nuances to see where the skills gap were. And then we started a startup called Lumo Hubs. Lumo Hubs is in partnership with universities because we recognise that everyone needs to build these skill sets because the future is changing so fast. For this, we had to partner with universities to make sure all students had the ability to learn,” she added.
