There
is no debate on the fact that the tech space is male dominated with
little to no female representation across different world regions.
Come to Africa, and the male to female
ratio representation within the tech space is even worst. This imbalance
is largely attributed to the fact that girls do not take up Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education as much as boys
do; something that leads to a small pipeline of female techies
available to fill up STEM jobs and act as role models.
It is only in the last decade that the
girl child has been allowed to seek formal education and become
socially-accepted to become a working class woman. In the past, most
African parents viewed girls as people that will be married off when
they come of age, and a woman’s place is in the kitchen and attending to
the needs of the children and her husband.
So naturally, the male to female
representation ratio within the tech space became worse off than in
other industrialized countries.
In the wake of the International Women’s
Day, Andela Fellowship is running a 4-year program, where female
techies will be taken through a paid professional software development
program. The program is enlisting only women and will take them through
coding classes that will turn them into programming gurus.
This program will be Andela’s first
all-female classes seeking to inspire the female techies to become world
class software developers. Students will also have the opportunity to
work around the world for six months.
“As an Andela Fellow, you are also
eligible for continued training and employment with Andela for four
years. After the four-year program, Andela Fellows can be expected to
start technology companies, work directly with client companies as
employees or continue to help train software engineers as Andela,” says Andela.
If you are a woman that loves to know
how technology works and what solutions you could create using
technology. Then this is your chance to take part in the Andela paid
programming training.
Click here to apply. Application deadline is April 8, 2016.