By Morenike Taire, Woman Editor
This year GITEX, Africa’s biggest stage for global tech & startup innovation expanded its global footprint to Nigeria, spotlighting the country’s vibrant innovation landscape and fast-growing digital economy.
In the first week of September, governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy welcomed guests from all over the world as Abuja and Lagos became the epicentre of West Africa’s tech revolution at the GITEX Nigeria Tech Expo & Future Economy Summit. Held at four different venues, this event brought together global tech leaders, professionals, and hundreds of exhibitors to showcase innovations in AI, fintech, cybersecurity, IoT, and more, with an unprecedented thousands of young tech enthusiasts in attendance.
As the number of women in tech takes a slow but steady rise. Vanguard engaged female multinational corporate participants on how they keep the pace as well as the experience of being in the male dominated space.
Women now pushing back —Busayo
I am currently always in touch with the OEMs and since I have that direct connection I am versed with the current trends and technologies and then I use shows and exhibitions to touch base and also to share technologies. Basically, the active connection with the OEMs.
The hardware interacts with the software. We have the hardware and we have the software solutions, so we don’t have an advantage over software solution providers but more like a partnership. In today’s world, it’s all about digitisation so we are looking at how to transform our environment to be paperless, which is also good for our environment, eco friendliness.
Another one of the problems technology can solve is security. Some of our offerings are embedded in network security solutions that help to protect data. Anything that has to do with printing is about data.
As a woman in the tech space, people have always classified the industry as male but right about now women are now pushing back. We see women CEOs . I have been in the tech space for almost 15 years now. I wouldn’t say there are really barriers, just for us to continue to excel.
For me, no barriers —Itohan
Keeping up I keep up with technological advancements by constant learning, constant using of the platform. The more you use, the more you are able to tweak it. It depends on the prompt.
Tech is not only about coding, we have different kinds of tech. The fact that you can use AI driven technology puts you in the tech space. AI has made life very easy for people. Now you can code without basically going to learn. All you need to do is know the exact tool that you want to use, know the exact platform that is needed and know the exact prompt. You just need some basics. You can ask, how do I….. Google is your friend, as they say. When you put the right prompt you will be able to get the right results.
We have content services on our platform. We don’t just push out content. There are so many problems in Nigeria and we are going to give you peace of mind.
It’s interesting that opportunities are now opening up for females. Some people even want some roles to be for females. I don’t want to be gender biased but when a woman knows something she goes all out. When a responsibility is given to a female, rest assured that you are getting results. For me there are no barriers. Some organisations are intentional about having females join their team.
Our softness, an advantage —Helen
We just stay in the loop, what is trending in the environment, what are people talking about, how are people handling situations, how AI is playing in the market. A lot of people now understand that they don’t need to know how to code or very technological to understand or use artificial intelligence. There’s so many courses online you can do out there to understand and it’s very broad. You can choose what interests you and focus on it depending on what your business model is and how you want to apply it.
AI is simply just amplifying the human abilities. Being able to understand how that can help your business. Technology is now becoming very broad. Not the way it was before like a secret. It’s more competitive than it was. You think you are the first person to come up with an idea before you know it, if you don’t implement, somebody else has already implemented it so you have to stay on the fast lane so they don’t leave you behind.
A big problem in Nigeria now is people’s identity are being stolen. We have a lot of that in the financial industry so right now especially with the kind of OEM that I distribute for, they govern an organisation’s life cycle of employees from who is joining, who is leaving, so that there’s nothing like somebody has left but their details are still in your organisation for donkey years to come which we find in most government organisations right now. You see some people have left the organisation for ten years and they are still on the payroll. This is what this AI can solve.
Gone are the days when you just sit down and you get one random person reaching out to you or sending you market communication because your data has not been managed properly or probably is being sold to people to carry out their own marketing activities. That is what we are trying to regulate and the Nigerian Data Protection Organisation has actually made it mandatory for every organisation that is handling customer data to ensure that they have a data privacy solution implemented. Your identity is unique to you so if someone is going to steal your username or password, there’s no way they can steal your identity which is your face and your fingerprints. Nobody should be able to play God with your identity.
I don’t see myself as just a woman in tech but as an entity. Being in tech is about you being aware of where you are and being able to find your niche and fit in. It’s been very easy for me fitting in. I have been so blessed because all the organisations I have worked in don’t have this stereotypes when it has to do with women. I think leveraging on that has helped me build more connections with my customers. The soft part of being a woman and also being knowledgeable about what I am doing. I’m using my unique identity as a woman to get what I want.
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