IWD: Tech Experts Underscore Importance of Girl-child Education in Bridging Digital Gender Gap 

IWD: Tech Experts Underscore Importance of Girl-child Education in Bridging Digital Gender Gap 

Experts in Nigeria’s tech space have underscored the importance of educating the girl-child on the usefulness 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 (DOA) to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD) 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), Sobi Ovia, said that the first point of call in bridging the technology gap was education.

Ovia insisted that 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, choosing the Special Correctional Centre for Girls would help connect the DOA initiative of empowering women with young girls towards bridging the gender gap.

“Today, we met with young girls between 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.

“As young girls and as women, we must continue to educate ourselves. We must continue to adopt innovative means of staying in the game,” Ovia added.

The Founder/CEO, Klasha, Jessica Anuna, said it was essential to empower young girls to understand the transformational power of technology in their lives.

She urged: “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.”

The CEO of Herconomy, a Nigerian FinTech company, Ife Durosinmi-Eti, admitted that bridging the technology gap would encourage more girls into the sector by exposing them to different technological career paths.

For Durosinmi-Eti, understanding the tech ecosystem at a young age would be more beneficial to the girls.

“I’m 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 know a lot about finance at the time. It wasn’t really discussed, and I saw how it affected me later on in life,” she said.

She commended DOA for the initiative and the donations it made towards bridging the technology gap in the correctional centre. 

In her words: “So, I know that because of what we’ve done today, we’ll see more women get into technology.”

International Women’s Day, observed on March 8 every year, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. 

The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. The theme for this year’s celebration is ‘DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality’.

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