In its bid towards building young women in energy, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) held first female Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workshop in Lagos.
The workshop was organised by the agency in partnership with leading private sector developers and was attended by power sector stakeholders and business professionals.
The aim was to bring together young women in the same room with top power sector and business professionals to share knowledge and discuss the opportunities for women in the industry.
The Energising Education Programme (EEP) being implemented by the REA to provide sustainable and clean power supply to 37 federal universities and seven University Teaching Hospitals across Nigeria creates an avenue for the training of 180 female STEM students (20 from each benefiting university) during the construction phase of the project, which serves as a catalyst towards ensuring sustainability of the project and building young women for the future in renewable energy.
The Managing Director/CEO, Damilola Ogunbiyi, in her opening remarks stated “this workshop is designed to facilitate the increase in leadership and development of professional women. It is also a platform for the 180 female students and professionals present to network, share their knowledge, discuss achievements and encourage the advancement of women across the energy sector”
Delivering the keynote address, the Minister of State for Power, Goddy Jedy-Agba told the participants “that gender and social exclusion will soon be a thing of the past. As a government, we are working to ensure that we mitigate the plight of women and promote equality and inclusiveness across all sectors. We cannot hope to reform the power sector without the skills, innovation and expertise of our women. That is why the importance of events like the one we are having today cannot be overemphasized. I therefore urge you to take charge of your future and make good use of the platform that has been established for you”.
The final activity of the workshop was the Project Shark Tank competition between the participating universities in which students of Bayero University, Kano, emerged first and won a prize of N1,000,000.
