In most regions of the world, female underrepresentation in the tech industry continues to be a problem. In Africa, access to education for girls is extremely limited.
A 2021 report from UNICEF indicates that 129 girls are out of school globally. While they may appear to be merely numbered, they tell the tale of many women who believe the tech industry is exclusive to men.
It’s possible that seeing more women in IT will motivate more women to join. Despite that the computer industry is overwhelmingly male-dominated, some women are making an impact and serving as role models for other women.
More women are entering the tech industry these days, and they have become role models for many young women who wish to pursue careers in technology.
The list is endless, however, we have come up with these 10 amazing who are blazing the trail in Africa in no particular order.
Muthoni Masinde
Muthoni Masinde received a doctorate, master’s, and bachelor’s degrees in computer science from the University of Cape Town, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Nairobi, respectively.
She is a senior lecturer and the head of research at the Central University of Technology’s Department of Information Technology in South Africa.
She is making an impact with her study which concentrates on leveraging wireless sensor networks and mobile phones to provide ICT-based solutions to droughts and climate change.
Masinde’s most current research result is Itiki (acronym for Information Technology and Indigenous Knowledge with Intelligence), an innovative bridge that was realized as a drought early warning system. The bridge connects African indigenous drought knowledge with science drought forecasting methods.
Yanmo Omorogbe
YanmoOmorogbe studied Chemical Engineering at Imperial College in London and graduated with honors. She co-founded the digital investment platform with Richmond Bassey in 2019, giving Nigerians real-time access to purchase, hold, and sell stocks of around 3,000 businesses listed on the US stock market through their mobile phones and laptops.
She is the Chief Operating Officer of Bamboo, an investment app that is reducing the entrance barrier to investing for people of all ages and economic levels.
Prior to joining Bamboo, Omoregbe functioned as an investment analyst at African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), an investment company that creates and manages private equity infrastructure funds that invest long-term institutional unlisted equity in African infrastructure projects. Within two years of joining AIIM, she advanced from investment analyst to associate.
Through Bamboo, Omoregbe is aiming to create a fairground by providing Nigerians with a way to build their businesses and receive returns on their investments.
Ire Aderinokun
Ire Aderinokun is a Google developer and a Nigerian front-end developer. She is the first female Google Developer Expert in Nigeria. Ire is a frontend developer and user interface designer that is self-taught.
At the age of 13, she created her first website, a Neopets fansite, on which she mastered her first HTML coding. Ire also maintains a blog called bitsofcode, where she offers coding advice to fellow programmers. In 2015, she launched a blog.
She developed a tiny scholarship program to enable Nigerian women to take an Udacity Nanodegree in a technology-related profession of their choice, and she organizes Frontstack, a conference for front-end engineers in Nigeria. She is the co-founder, COO, and VP of Engineering of the cryptocurrency exchange BuyCoins in Africa.
Isis Nyong’o Madison
Isis Nyong’o Madison is a Kenyan media and technology entrepreneur. She worked with InMobi, Google, and MTV Africa, and is presently the director of strategic advice firm Asphalt & Ink. Albright Stonebridge Group’s Senior Advisor is also the inventor of Mum’s Village, an online platform that is changing the mother-child experience in Kenya.
Madison has made her impact on expanding media and digital enterprises across Africa over the last decade, earning the title of “Africa’s Top 20 Youngest Power Women” by Forbes.
She was the Managing Director of InMobi’s Africa division. Madison previously worked at Google, where she concentrated on mobile and local content partnerships. She was part of the team that spearheaded MTV’s commercial venture into Africa.
Juliana Rotich
Juliana Rotich is a Kenyan information technology specialist who has created web tools for crowdsourcing disaster information and environmental coverage.
She is the co-founder of iHub, a Nairobi-based collaborative innovation center, and Ushahidi, open-source software for data collection and mapping. She is a Senior Fellow at TED.
She is a board member of Standard Media Group and the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Board, and also a trustee of the Bankinter Foundation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Spain. From May until December 2018, she was the head of BASF’s East Africa Country Cluster.
Odunayo Eweniyi
Odunayo Eweniyi is a business executive and activist from Nigeria. PiggyVest’s Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, as well as the Feminist Coalition’s co-founder.
Odun was awarded the Future Awards Africa Prize in Technology in 2018. She was named to Forbes Africa’s 30 Under 30 Technology list in 2019. In 2019, she was named one of Quartz Africa’s 30 Innovators.
Forbes Africa’s list of the 20 New Wealth Creators in Africa for 2019 included her. In 2020, she has been nominated for The Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year.
She was also included on the Bloomberg 50 2020 list. For her combined contributions during the End SARS protests in October 2020, she was named to Time 100 Next 2021.
Eweniyi solicited money for medical care and legal help for victims of police brutality during and after the End SARS rallies in 2020 against Nigerian police brutality.
Rebecca Enonchong
She is a Cameroonian technology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of AppsTech. She is one of Africa’s women in tech role models who is most renowned for her work in Africa to promote technology.
Enonchong has won numerous accolades from prestigious organizations like the World Economic Forum. She was named one of the top 10 female tech founders to watch in Africa by Forbes in 2014.
Enonchong has spent the majority of her career in Africa supporting technology. She has done this work in both the United States and Africa. She founded and chaired the Africa Technology Forum, a non-profit committed to assisting African technology entrepreneurs.
She is a member of the Salesforce.com Foundation’s board of directors. She is a member of the board of VC4Africa, one of Africa’s biggest online forums committed to entrepreneurs and investors.
She is a member of the Digital Advisory Panel for the UK Department for International Development and has worked briefly with the UN’s Women Global Advisory Committee and the UN ICT Task Force.
Addy Awofisayo
Since September 2021, Addy Awofisayo has been the Head of Music for Sub-Saharan Africa at YouTube and YouTube Music.
Addy was previously the Content Partnerships Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at YouTube, where she assisted creators, artists, and media firms on the continent with their YouTube growth plans.
She was a driving force behind the debut of YouTube Music/Premium in Nigeria, as well as Idris Elba’s extremely prominent Africa Day Concert.
Creator360 Africa, NextUp SSA, and the creator celebration live broadcast are just a few of the initiatives she spearheaded to stimulate the development of African creators.
Addy previously worked at CBS and Microsoft Corporation before entering YouTube. She also has a Harvard University Master’s degree and a University of Virginia Bachelor’s degree.
Farida Nana Efua Bedwei
Farida Nana Efua Bedwei is a Ghanaian software engineer and co-founder of Logiciel, a fintech startup in Ghana. Farida Bedwei has experience developing mobile and corporate applications, as well as software architecture and deployment, notably for banking applications.
Bedwei then went to work with G-Life Microfinance, where she was in charge of developing and executing new products and services.
She departed in April 2011 to form Logiciel Ltd in Accra, Ghana, where she is the co-founder and chief technology officer.
She led the development and deployment of gKudi, a web-based (cloud) banking software suite for the microfinance business, which is now used by 130 microfinance institutions across the country.
Nmachi Jidenma
Nmachi Jidenma is Sequoia Capital’s Senior Director of Scouts and Partnerships. She is in charge of Sequoia’s Scout seed investing program as well as partnerships. Stripe, Uber, and Notion are among Scout’s investments.
Nmachi is a member of the Goddy Jidenma Foundation’s Board of Trustees. She is a Limited Partner at How Women Invest, an initial stage venture capital business, as well as a member of the CCHub Investment Company’s Board of Directors and a business mentor/advisor.
She has spoken at Fortune Conferences, Techonomy, Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Money2020, and other international conferences. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including CNN and Reuters.
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