Spread across history are the many contributions of women and the woman folk to development and civilization. In today’s world, women have become major players in almost every important sector of the world, leadership, and technology inclusive. The role of women as key players in leadership and technological advancement becomes even more pronounced as the world advances towards complete dependence on technology.
This article seeks to beam the spotlight on the many women who are working tirelessly to contribute effectively to technological advancement in Africa. It further highlights the importance of women in Leadership roles.
Women In Leadership Roles
Leadership has never been gender-dependent. It’s the qualities inherent or cultivated by an individual that determines their success as leaders. Let’s take a look at some of the women who have chosen to challenge the status quo wherever they find themselves, who fight for a more equal future, and who have helped shape history!
- Ngozi Okonji Iweala – Development Economist
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian- American economist and international development expert who has served since March 1, 2021, as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. She is the first woman and the first African to hold the office. She sits on the boards of Standard Chartered Bank, Twitter, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, and the African Risk Capacity(ARC). Previously, Okonjo-Iweala spent a 25-year career at the World Bank as a development economist, scaling the ranks to the number two position of managing director, operations (2007-2011).
She also served two terms as finance minister of Nigeria (2003-2006, 2011- 2015) under President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan, respectively. She was the first woman to serve as the country’s finance minister, the first woman to serve in that office twice, and the only finance minister to have served under two different presidents. Okonjo-Iweala is the founder of Nigeria’s first indigenous opinion-research organization, NOI-Polls. She also founded the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think tank based in Abuja, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Brookings Institution.
Since 2019, Okonjo-Iweala has been part of UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education. Since 2019, she has also been serving on the High-Level Council on Leadership and Management for Development of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health).
Okonjo-Iweala Okonjo has received numerous recognitions and awards. She has been listed as one of the 50 Greatest World leaders (Fortune, 2015), the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World (TIME, 2014), the Top 3 Most Powerful Women in Africa (Forbes, 2012). She was listed among 73 “brilliant” business influencers in the world by Conde Nast International.
Okonjo-Iweala has received honorary degrees from 14 universities worldwide, including some from the most prestigious colleges: -University of Pennsylvania (2013) -Yale University (2015) -Amherst College (2009) -Trinity College, Dublin (2007) -Colby College (2007)
- Graca Machel – Politician and Humanitarian
Graca Machel is a prominent Mozambican woman who, for decades, has worked for women’s rights, education, and peace. Despite a long career as a feminist leader, she is best known for her two marriages, initially to Mozambique’s first president Samora Machel, and later to Nelson Mandela, when he was president of South Africa.
Graca Machel is an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and was made an honorary British Dame by Queen Elizabeth Il in 1997 for her humanitarian work. She is the only woman in modern history to have served as First Lady of two countries, South Africa and Mozambique.
Graca Machel is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. As a panel member, she facilitates coalition building to leverage and broker knowledge and convenes decision-makers to influence policy for lasting change in Africa. She was chancellor of the University of Cape Town between 1999 and 2019. Graca Machel received the 1992 Africa Prize, awarded annually to an individual who has contributed to the goal of eliminating hunger in Africa by the year 2000.
Machel received the 1992 Africa Prize, awarded annually to an individual who has contributed to the goal of eliminating hunger in Africa by the year 2000. Following her retirement from the Mozambique ministry, Machel was appointed as the expert in charge of producing the groundbreaking United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children.
On 17 January 2016, she was announced by UNESCO as a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate.
Ms. Machel is a current member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights that she co-founded with her husband, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Novelist and Feminist Campaigner
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in 1977 to a middle-class Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria. Her mother became the first female registrar at the University of Nigeria, while her father was a professor of statistics there. Pressured by social and familial expectations, Adichie ‘did what I was supposed to do’ and began to study medicine at the University of Nigeria.
After a year and a half, she decided to pursue her ambitions as a writer, dropped out of medical school, and took up a communication scholarship in the US. Chimamanda has bagged nothing less than 15 honourary doctorate degrees from respected universities around the world. Adichie’s three novels all focus on contemporary Nigerian culture, its political turbulence, and at times, how it can intersect with the West. She published Purple Hibiscus in 2003, Half of a Yellow Sun in 2006, and Americanah in 2013.
Her novels and wider writings are the best windows into Adichie’s incisive and emotive imagination. She has delivered several impressive talks that get to the heart of their subject. They broadly encompass race and gender and our tendency to accept what we are taught without recognizing ingrained prejudice.
Her 2009 lecture, The Danger of a Single Story, is a brilliant discussion of race, but her argument is cleverly applicable across many broader contexts. In this lecture, her discussion of US perceptions of Mexicans as the ‘abject immigrant’ during the early 2000s, could just as easily be transferred to our current hysteria about Syrian refugees entering Europe.
Adichie’s 2013 lecture We Should All Be Feminists discusses the damaging paradigms of femininity and masculinity. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, “You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful otherwise, you would threaten the man.”
Adichie argues that Feminism should not be an ‘elite little cult’ but a party ‘full of different feminisms.’ It is an important message to take to heart – we are imperfect. We are attempting to unlearn what we have unconsciously learned and simultaneously discover new ways of seeing.
- Daphne Nkosi – Executive Chairperson at Kalagadi Manganese Pty Ltd
Daphne Nkosi is the executive chairman of Kalagadi Manganese Pty Ltd, which is the first African- woman-founded and predominantly African-women-led mining company in the world. Daphne Nkosi’s formidable drive as a business powerhouse, social worker, political activist, and women’s rights campaigner, has its roots in the impoverished rural environment and staunchly patriarchal society of her birth.
In 2015, the Africa Female Business Leader of the Year was awarded to her The international title was presented to her at the 2015 African Business Awards held in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Daphne is committed to the people of South Africa and uses every available resource to enrich the lives of the average South African. She is responsible for the creation of more than 30 000 jobs in the Northern Cape and will go down in history as the mother of the largest mining venture.
Importance Of Women In Leadership and Technology roles
It’s no secret that women are highly underrepresented in the tech industry. But have you ever considered the great benefits of a gender-inclusive team in your organization? Read further to learn more about the importance of women in the tech industry and the value they can bring to organizations that employ them.
- Diversity of Thought
Collaboration between team members of different backgrounds, genders, and races can open a world of creativity and innovation, work efficiency, better communication, and increased team success.
Men and Women see things from different perspectives so having a diverse team can lead to an input of unique ideas which will enable better problem-solving skills and eventually boost performance level!
Having a diverse team also means having the capabilities to understand the pain points of all members of a target demographic and, this aids in proferring the best solutions.
- Mentors and Role Models
Imagine facing a gender-based issue at your workplace and not having a mentor of the same gender to talk to at the end of the day!😔😔
Having a female mentor that helps you as a woman in tech is very beneficial. It causes a ripple effect because the more women mentor other women, the more it encourages them to come into the tech space and thrive!
On 8th March 2021, First Check Africa introduced #ChooseToChallenge with a focus on highlighting the 30 Nigerian Women in Tech challenging the Status Quo. Read about them here.
Conclusion: There are more women in leadership and technology who are breaking ancient ideologies, it is of utmost importance that we see them as allies than as threats. The tech space is vast enough to accommodate people from every work of life, gender, and race. Women in technology and leadership positions is a yes in the 21st century given the pace at which technology evolves daily. From little children to teen girls, to nursing mothers and aged women, tech and leadership should become dominant.