Building on the success of TechSis 2023, the first edition of its tech initiative aimed at empowering girls and women with digital skills, GetBundi Education Foundation has opened applications for the second edition tagged ‘TechSis 2024.’
Whereas the first edition targeted 500 women from across Africa and focused on coding, the second edition is looking to train 1,000 women from Nigeria on web development and data analytics at the cost of N321 million or $250,000.
This time also, GetBundi has secured a partnership with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, which will be sending in 300 women to the training as part of measures to close the gender gap in the tech space and hone the skills of women on contemporary global trends on digital solutions and applications.
Similarly, the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, Imo State University, will be sending 25 women for the training.
Minister for Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, is delighted with the partnership with GetBundi, saying, “It will provide our women and young girls with cutting edge on digital application and other computer-based solutions that will put them at par with their contemporaries in other climes.
“The global community is moving at a very fast pace and the Ministry thought it ideal to organise training on digital skills for our women to upscale their knowledge on computer application and information communication technology. The interesting aspect of the proposed collaboration is that aside from organising the programme free for the women, it will be followed up by empowering the participants with start-up kits that will not only enhance their capacity of digital solutions but will encourage them to start their own businesses.
“We are very optimistic that this initiative will open up new vistas of opportunities for our women to veer into special areas of human endeavour that will acquaint them with prerequisite knowledge and skills to cope with contemporary global trends in ICT.”
Ohanenye further said the training has been designed to have 300 participants between the ages of 18 and 40 years, drawn from across the six geo-political zones as a pilot project which would be scaled up subsequently to have more participants.
She thanked GetBundi Education Foundation for coming up with the initiative, adding, “This initiative will further boost our drive to close the gap on gender inclusiveness.”
Responding, the Executive Secretary of GetBundi Education Foundation, Dr. Obiamaka Agbakoba, said the tech industry is now a male-dominated career across the globe, Africa inclusive, with only 30 per cent of African women making up the tech industry and only 22 per cent of women making up the industry workforce in Nigeria, according to research.
“We believe that with conducive platforms, Nigerian women can learn and lead commercial innovations but this female digital exclusion, a situation where women are disproportionately left behind in accessing and using digital technologies and services, is a pervasive problem hindering the realization of fully inclusive digital future and we need to bridge this gap,” she said.
During the first edition of the programme last year, Course Coordinator, GetBundi Education Technology and GetBundi Education Foundation, Mrs Juliet Ijei, had said that to ensure the effective inclusion of women in the tech sector, the TechSis initiative would be organized yearly by the GetBundi Foundation in different areas of digital skills.
Founder of GetBundi, Osita Oparaugo, had also said the ed-tech platform is opposed to education inequality, especially with STEM and digital skills, “and we won’t stop until millions of African women benefit from GetBundi Education Foundation”.
“The women are here, the hunger to learn is there, just the opportunity and that is what GetBundi Education Foundation is presenting to women across Africa,” he said.
GetBundi Education Foundation is the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of GetBundi Education Technology, a hybrid digital skills education technology platform designed to deliver high quality, engaging and accessible digital courses to individuals across Africa.
GetBundi targets to support the upskilling of 10 million Africans in the next 10 years through digital skills acquisition via a strategy tagged “The GetBundi Vision 2034”.
