As part of the efforts to mark the 2023 International Day of Girls in ICT, Tech4Dev has launched the Women Techsters fellowship class of 2024. The purpose of Tech4Dev is to empower women across African countries to have knowledge and experience in technology and enroll them for internships in their respective fields.
Tech4Dev is a tuition-free one-year technology upskilling programme that empowers young girls and women within the age range of 16 to 40 years across Africa with global in-demand skills, relevant to kickstart careers and businesses in technology.
The non-governmental organisation founded by Joel Ogunsola had been in operation in five African countries, then increased to 15 others and now available in 22 nations in the region.
The countries of operation are Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan, Liberia, Uganda, Algeria, Angola, Rwanda and Gambia.
According to the Women Techsters Programme Lead, Blessing Ashi, the programme is held to train women for one year and “so far, there have been lots of success stories from women, who underwent the programme. This year they will be empowering their beneficiaries in software development, product design, cyber security, science, mobile application development, product management, blockchain and many other technology-related sectors and fields.
The Executive director, Oladiwura Oladepo, explained that over the last five years, they have made progress from impacting just 2,400 women in Nigeria to most recently impacting 89,483 females in Africa in 2023.
Oladepo also added that, in the course of the one-year free program, there are six months of intensive training and six months of internship and enrollment to equip women and build their careers in the line of technology.
The goal of Tech4Dev is to impact 50,000 African women in different fields of technology by 2030, which is more reason why there is a yearly increase in the number of applicants.
