The Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has commemorated the Women’s month through a symposium where it laid emphasis on the role of technology in promoting women’s empowerment and gender equity.
The Women’s Month Symposium which held in Lagos was woven around the 2023 International Women’s Day theme ‘DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.’
Aderonke Ige, Associate Director at CAPPA while speaking on ‘Innovation for Social Justice and Change’ identified the importance of engaging women at all levels and how technology can help to drive social change.
Ige said “each time we do not consider women in governance, politics, economy, or cultural considerations, we’re short changing ourselves.”
She shared that technology has helped to create free space, anonymity, intellectual leverage, and infusion of social skills into social change outcomes.
Ige who noted that “social movements is becoming popular because it is driven by technology” advised women to “build alliance to drive social change, using technology”.
In his remarks, Akinbode Olufemi, the Executive Director of CAPPA, acknowledged the impact of women in a team, also explained that “at CAPPA, we really place premium on our women team because they are the drivers of many of our activities.”
Olufemi said “as we look into the future, we should think about how to use the digital space to improve the value of women and advance women’s rights.”
“We should begin to prepare our girls and young women to delve into the tech space. The old era of stigmatizing and segregating certain job roles for girls are over. Women can excel in any kind of job,” he added.
Udeme Jalekun, Software Quality Assurance Expert while speaking on ‘the role of technology in promoting women empowerment and gender equity: opportunities for women in technology’ shared that the major limitation to women breaking through in tech is because it is associated with too many difficulty.
Jalekun who noted that tech is considered to be complex, however, encouraged women to take the bold step and delve into technology.
“Anyone can break into tech, women can excel in it. As women, we need to understand that nothing comes easy. The most important thing is to be determined, and anything can be achieved,” Jalekun added.
She also stressed that “tech will keep advancing, considering a path in it will make you relevant forever.”