Experts and stakeholders in Nigeria’s tech space have reiterated the importance of educating the girl-child on the advantages of the use of technology as a way of closing the digital gender gap in the country.
The experts, who spoke on Tuesday at an event organised by the law firm of Duale, Ovia and Alex-Adedipe to commemorate International Women’s Day 2023, stressed the need to empower young girls to understand the transformational power of technology to their lives.
Partner and Head of Litigation, Duale, Ovia and Alex-Adedipe (DOA), Soibi Ovia, said that the first point of call in bridging the technology gap was education.
Ovia said young girls must be made to understand the effect of technology and its uses, and how it connects to their everyday life.
“We also know that as women, your major battle in the future is work-life balance. And technology has come to aid you in balancing the woman’s home life and her quests to chase her professional career,” Ovia said at the event held at the Special Correctional Centre for Girls in Mushin, Lagos.
According to her, the choice of the Special Correctional Centre for Girls would help in connecting the DOA initiative of empowering women with young girls towards bridging the gender gap.
“Today, we’ve met with young girls between the ages 14 and 18. And we are here to inform them about the advent of technology and then the advantages of technology to bridge the gap of gender inequality,” Ovia said.
“As young girls and as women, we must continue to educate ourselves. We must continue to adopt innovative means of staying in the game,” she said at the event themed ‘Closing the Digital Gender Gap’.
The founder/CEO, Klasha, Jessica Anuna, said it was important to empower young girls towards understanding the transformational power of technology in their lives.
According to her, young girls must know the importance of leveraging technology in bridging the digital gap for gender equity by believing in its transformative processes.
“I’m also looking forward as I continue on my journey, towards showing them what is possible for using technology to transform lives,” Anuna said.
The Chief Executive Officer, Herconomy, a Nigerian FinTech company, Ife Durosinmi-Eti, said bridging the technology gap would encourage more girls into the sector by exposing them to different career paths in technology.
Durosinmi-Eti, whose firm focuses on savings for women and ensuring women understand the benefits embedded in growing their income and be better with their money, said understanding the tech ecosystem at a young age would be more beneficial to the girls.
“I’m very excited about this programme today because we’re catching them young. As a very young lady myself, when I was very young, I couldn’t save money. I didn’t really know a lot about finance at the time. It wasn’t something that was really discussed and I saw how it affected me later on in life,” she said.
She also thanked DOA for the initiative and the donations it made towards bridging the technology gap in the correctional centre.
“So, I know that because of what we’ve done today, we’ll see more women get into technology,” she said.
