Having More Women in Tech Industry Demands Collective Effort- Chinwe Onuorah

A number of experts have argued that it is important for more women to embrace careers in technology in order to ensure diversity. Across the world, the number of women in technology is increasing, but not as fast as proponents would expect.

The case may be worse in Africa, particularly, in Nigeria, as a significant number of women still regard technical roles as somewhat, more masculine.

According to Intel’s report, Women and Web, nearly 25% women have access to the internet and the gender gap, 45% in Africa. I recently had a chat with Chinwe Onuorah, managing partner, BVC Consulting, an IT-based company in Lagos, Nigeria and she shared her thoughts on how to encourage more women to embrace careers in technology.

Chinwe stated that she started out her journey in the IT world as an Intern in an IT organisation that has its major focus on training.

“At the time, I started out as Front Desk/Receptionist and my role was, typically, to counsel students, who wanted to start and build a career in technology and I picked it up from there”, she stated. Incidentally, Chinwe did not study Computer Science in school, but Mass Communication.

She believed that, Mass Communication is a course that can sync with any field of study, hence, she maximised her skills and knowledge of Mass Communication, garnered over the period to blend in her role of talking to the students interested in taking up IT careers.

On how she has been able to cope, in a country where certification is taken seriously, Chinwe, explained that, because of her love for learning, she took some IT Certification courses along the way, through her career path in the IT field.

She stated that she got trained in all those courses because, she was interested in the field of technology and it worked for her.

She stressed that, even though, she started out as an Intern, somewhere along the line, her boss realised that she was being under-utilised, by putting her on at the Front office, so, he moved her to the Business Development Desk, where she grew through the ranks. “Of course, if you are going to talk to a customer about the organisation’s services and products, I have to learn it. I had to know what I was going to talk to the customer about”, she stated.

Chinwe stated that, it has been challenging for her, operating in a male-dominated IT industry, but not impossible because, she is a self-driven person.

She opined that her love for technology also keeps her going within the industry. She explained that she also had a good mentor in her first boss, who really held her through the mill of the IT field.

She advised women already in the tech industry to mentor other women who are interested in having a career in technology, so, we can have more women in the industry as this will make a lot of difference.

Chinwe explained that, from the results of a research she conducted on why there are few women in tech, she noticed that girls, from birth, through primary,secondary school, assimilate Maths differently from how boys do and this is not because she believes that females have low IQ than the males.

“I belief that women have IQ, however, we need to find creative ways to communicate Maths to women, so that, they can understand “, she stressed.

She went on to say that, one of the reasons why she had to struggle with Maths was that, when she is told that 1+12, she wants to be told why it is so. “In telling me the why, I will be able to understand that, so, when next I see face that same situation, I would know that, oh, it is because of this, that is why it’s this and not just coming up with a formula like the Almighty Formula”, she explained.

Maths, she noted, should be taught from the from the high point of understanding and not cramming.

In Chinwe’s opinion, she believes that it will be difficult for someone who is struggling with Mths to be able to code because, coding requires a lot of brain work. She also stated that ladies need more role models at the top of the It industry to kindle the interest of the female gender in the industry.

Apart from IT Consulting and Training, Chinwe stated that her outfit also does implementation around big data analytics. She stressed that all businesses, whether big, small, medium and Startups, need the services in big data.

On a final note, Chinwe is of the view that, the solution to the issue of encouraging more women to take up careers in IT, should be a collective effort of the parents, government, private sector etc.

“From the government perspectives, build communities, support systems for women in technology”, she advised.

Likewise, stressed that the corporate world too should have support systems for women in technology and parents should encourage their female children to take up the STEM subjects in school, so, they can fit in well in the IT world.