The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. In keeping with that theme, we organized a collaborative commemorative tech workshop on the 10th March 2023, with El Pasion Foundation dubbed “DigitALL: LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS TO MAINTAIN A CUTTING EDGE AS A WOMAN IN BUSINESS AND CAREER.
The Event was sponsored by the American Space, Abuja who provided all the facilities we utilised for the event – the Space, the computers used for the practical sessions, the camera, and the overall décor.
This hands-on practical workshop brought together 14 business and career women aged between 18 – 35 largely from grassroots communities in Abuja. The women were either career women working in the civil service, or business women with their own entrepreneurial ventures. We also had a few university students in attendance who also had their own businesses on the side. Below is a graphical/pictorial explanation of the demography of our attendees.
The main purpose of the workshop was to expose them to taught them to tech platforms they could use to upscale and upskill themselves both in business and professionally. These tech platforms are already existing platforms which they may not have considered exactly very potent in setting them apart both in business and professionally.
The workshop taught them how to creates a YouTube channel, trade on Jiji and learn courses on Coursera, among others. It also taught them how to create simple websites on Google Sites and as well as how to create graphs and charts of their business information on Google spreadsheets and utilizing the Google Workstation. These were the few modules that could be taught given the shortness of time for the Workshop.
As is in the nature of such workshops with an unreliable internet network generally in the country, we had network hiccups which delayed the workshop to an extent. That notwithstanding, we made the best of it to have a wonderful event. And because the shortness of time meant we couldn’t cover all the topics we’d hoped to cover, we have created a WhatsApp platform to continue mentoring and helping the participants in continuing to practice what was taught in this workshop.
We made the following findings from the Workshop and the women who participated in it:
- Among the women, the Millennials aged between 30 – 35 and a few of the women in the 25 – 30 age category were not as tech savvy as their Gen Z counterparts in the 18 – 25 age category. Women in the latter age category appeared more tech knowledgeable than they were. What this effectively revealed was that the age demography where the need we are looking to fill falls into may have to embrace more of the Millennials than the younger generation who appear more grounded in use of technology.
- All the women had at least an android phone and thus had a gadget that they could make use of when some of the computers were not working.
- Following from number 2 above, none of them were novices when it came to the rudiments of using technology – phones and computers.
- Access to computers is a major challenge for women in business in rural communities. And as such it would be more sustainable teaching them how to make the most use of their phones since almost all women have a smartphone that can perform some of these tech for entrepreneurship functions.
The event was a hybrid event which was also streamed on Zoom and live-streamed on Facebook. Indeed our Speakers spoke virtually and demonstrated to our participants from their virtual location. The beauty of having the event as a hybrid event is that the knowledge shared with the physical participants are also available as a memorial for anyone who is interested in the knowledge to go back and watch and practice it. The video of the event can be accessed on our YouTube page here or on our Facebook page here. Please do not forget to like our video and pages and also subscribe to our channel.
The event would not have been a success without the participants who attended and were all very punctual and actively participated. All participants were given Certificates of Participation at the end of the Workshop.
We want to also thank our Speakers for doing justice to the topic. We want to also specially thank the American Space, Abuja for sponsoring this program logistically by providing the Space that we used as well as the computers used and the camera used to capture the beautiful pictures seen here. Through these Spaces and the social impact events such as this one organized in partnership, by the Executive Director (God’sglory Ifezue) who is a United States Government Exchange Alumni, US-Nigeria relations are further deepened.
Happy International Women’s Day once again. Follow our social media pages to stay informed of the remaining great stuff we have lined up for this Women’s month. You can find our Instagram handle here and our Twitter handle here; our Facebook page here and finally our YouTube channel here.
Glory Ifezue Foundation for Women and Youth Initiative. 