The Women Techsters Fellowship, an initiative of Tech4Dev, recorded an impressive 76,666 entries across 15 African countries compared to 4,883 applications from 19 countries the previous year.
Women Techsters Fellowship is a 1-year virtual learning program delivered through 6 months of intensive training, a 6-month internship, and enrollment into a mentorship program to equip women with skills to build tech careers and tech-enabled businesses.
Multiple cohorts will be executed over a 12-month timeline using standardized learning curriculums across the selected learning tracks for the next ten years.
The program is designed using globally recognized standardized learning curriculums across the 8 learning tracks, to ensure the best learning experience to deliver the right outcomes.
Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos, Oladiwura Oladepo, Executive Director, Tech4Dev said 14,509 from the 76,666 entries completed their applications, while 4,657 entries were moved to the second stage.
She said the second stage of the admission involved a technical assessment and submission of a motivational video and after that 2,018 applications were moved to the final stage of the admission process.
“The final stage was an alumni-led one-on-one interview set to determine the rationale for admission for the participants and we got the support of our wonderful Women Techsters Fellows Class of 2022 Alumni to conduct the interviews over one month period.”
She explained that the dream by 2030 is to reach 5 million women in Africa by empowering them with the knowledge and skills to practically support Africa so far-reaching for women across Africa, as well as providing opportunities to access placements and entrepreneurship, or else to achieve a 50:50 male to female ratio in the technology space.
“We made a decision to broaden our impact rich by opening up the program in 15 countries across Africa, these countries Ethiopia, Dr. Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Algeria, Morocco, Angola, Mozambique, Madagascar, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa.”
The Women Techsters initiative is aimed at bridging the digital and technology knowledge divide between men and women as well as ensuring equal access to opportunities for all.
According to Oladiwura, the initiative will empower 5 million African women over the next 10 years (2020-2030) through a series of activities held simultaneously across different countries.
“Our objective is to grow and support an army of tech-empowered girls and women across Africa who will have equal access to decent job opportunities as well as build and scale their ideas into tech-enabled businesses and deep tech startups, which will aid Africa’s economic growth.”
At the briefing, Blessing Ashi, Program Lead, Women Techsters, said they are driven by the success story of numerous women in the program.
“We continue our mission and the dreams represented smaller across Africa so that the more we access opportunity to launch carrier and bigger cities technology.”
She said are empowering girls and women across Africa with varying degrees of digital, deep tech, and soft skills required within the technology ecosystem.
Blessing advised applicants who were not able to make it to the final stage to take advantage of the bootcamp, a 2-week bi-monthly training to introduce women to intermediate-level tech skills along 5 learning tracks to help them jump-start careers or fill in knowledge gaps from emerging technologies.
According to her, bootcamps serve as a guide for boosters to determine their preferred career choices.
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