From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Enugu State Government has said that the need for the South East to compete favourably in the global technology ecosystem was the motivation behind her planned training of women from the zone on software engineering.
Already, the state has concluded arrangements through her Technology Hub (Tech Hub) for the training of 400 women from various parts of the geopolitical zone on the said software engineering that would start from the first week of August.
The General Manager, Enugu Technology Hub and Youth Innovation, Chidubem Anowor, who disclosed this to newsmen in Enugu, said the state also intend to use the free training to not only take the women out of labour market, but also empower them to create jobs.
Anowor stated that the Tech Hub has already received a grant from Ford Foundation for the training which would run for nine months and which would equip the 400 women with the technological skills that would put them at a vantage position to make money and compete favourably in the global technology ecosystem.
He noted that research conducted by his team indicated that the tech ecosystem in the South East was deficient with women, hence would not compete favourably with others with such gaps.
He said, “We have decided that we need to alter the narrative in Enugu and change the index by growing the number of women in tech and ultimately, men too can grow. The tech ecosystem has been deficient with the number of women who design and build. For us to be able to change the narrative and increase the innovation index for either Enugu or the South East, we discover that the people who are able to create the starter effect from where men can follow are the women.
“We have discovered that for every 100 people who are learning tech, only two of them are women and that is why we have not been able to compete effectively with South West and Lagos in particular because the number of women who are in tech are very small.”
Anowor said that, “At the end of the programme, we are expecting 80 per cent of the women who have come into this programme to become startups. The people who are part of this program will consistently have products they are working on. Some of them are likely to solve some problems that currently exist. They will build on those projects and build solutions and at the end of that project we will get some venture capitals that provide grants to such people.
“People who come out of this programme will be building in fintech, solving solutions in health and supply chains, they will be solving solutions using block chain, they will be solving solutions in real estate, solutions in agriculture and they will be solving solutions in revenue. So 80 per cent of the people coming out of the programme will be building solutions that people can actually use and there are people already waiting to provide funding for them. The 20 percent remaining will be exported to companies, some in Nigeria and some outside.”
Participants according to him, would be required to register in the ongoing registration to enable them to have identity cards and certificates, and pointed out that to be qualified to participate the women must have computers and must be computer literate.
On why the tech industry had not blossomed in the South East region he said, “What everybody in South East is doing is that once you get to any learning track in tech, he will go to Lagos or Abuja, but if we are able to do this programme and graduate these people, 80 per cent of the tech companies who will use these talents will open offices here so that when they open offices, these offices will be physical here and they will be building talents here and this will increase capitals.”