…Empowers 100 undergraduates and unemployed female graduates
Africa Agility Foundation in collaboration with Lagos State Government, Impact Lagos and Eko Innovation Centre recently concluded the 2nd edition of ‘Lagos Girls in Tech – It’s bigger than coding’ intensive Bootcamp for 100 undergraduate and unemployed females in Lagos from 28th May to 11th June 2021. The Bootcamp aimed at intentionally closing the gender gap in tech by empowering the young female with a strong foundation towards building a career in Tech, Agile, or becoming a techpreneurs.
This edition is designed to provide Lagos females with education, mentorship, career and entrepreneurship opportunities in tech, Agile, and human skills.
We are non-profit organization aim to transform, leapfrog and enable Africa to be a leading digital economy. We envision building a smarter generation of leaders who will take Africa towards the superhighway of progress to a continent that can innovate faster than any other continent in the world.
Participants were awarded the Certified Scrum Master certification from Scrum Alliance the leading Agile organization in the world after completing the 2-day intense training facilitated by Mrs. Aanu Gopald and Jesse Fewell and in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, UI/UX, Web Development, and Data Science. The last week of the camp was an innovative hackathon challenge using Scrum Framework, an iterative and incremental product development method to design digital solutions that help to solve Lagos State complex problems (Traffic, Waste Management, and E-Healthcare which aligns with the first three themes of the SDG development agenda. The Bootcamp was concluded with a “show and tell” and pitch deck of the innovations to the state Governor, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, alongside his cabinet members and MDs of corporations.
In his speech at the grand finale, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu commended the participants on their dedication, commitment, and innovative solutions to solve pressing problems of Lagosian. The Governor promised all the participants laptops also mentioned that the State will also adopt some of the innovations created by the girls in solving some of Lagos State’s pressing issues. Mr. Aniedi Udo-Obong, Program manager West Africa, Google Inc. spoke with the girls on how to pitch their ideas and sell the value propositions before the “show and tell”.
Commenting on the initiative, Founder, Africa Agility, Aanu Gopald said: “All around the world, digital transformation is becoming a critical factor in long-term, sustainable social and economic growth, and Africa is no exception. As Africa is poised to be one of the fastest-growing regions in the world, the key action that will drive growth over the next two decades is the adoption of Agile and digital technologies, hence equipping the youth particularly the underrepresented gender with digital competencies must be a staple in every country’s social economic development Agenda. “This will also reduce the gender inequality in the technology industry today, as the percentage of women in tech currently stands at about 25%, while black/African America women occupies 3% of the population. The gender gap in the industry has been the case for several decades now whilst the industry has failed in addressing a much more prevalent issue that is to show African tech that women equally can excel in tech too.” Aanu added.
In recognition and appreciation of our partners Scrum Alliance, Mind the Gap, sponsors SAHCO, Birdview Group and our bank of talented tutors Aanu said: “their roles in the success of this initiative cannot be overemphasized. We are grateful for your support in making this edition a reality and more so in impacting the lives of these young women. We look forward to working with you in the future and many more collaborations on upcoming editions in achieving our goal of empowering ‘10,000 young women with digital skills by 2025’.
Africa Agility over the years has embarked on several initiatives in line with its vision of a dignified smarter and brighter future for children and youths of the underserved community and the entire continent as a whole. These include STEM for Rural Areas; Agile in Higher Education; Enterprise Incubation and Girls in Technology.
Our mission is to touch lives, one breath at a time through educational programs using digital agile methods and technology, youth development to raise NexGen leaders that will transform nations and bring a sustainable improvement into the lives of underserved young people through strategic collaborations.
