Women in STEM East Africa Session at the Connected East Africa Summit a Success

The inaugural Connected East Africa Summit took place on 30^th March to 1^st April 2015 at the Leisure Lodge Golf and Resort in Kwale County. The summit has been running for the last seven years (from 2009) and had been known as Connect Kenya. In 2014, East African ICT Ministers proposed an expansion of the summit and it was rebranded to Connect East Africa. The theme of this year’s summit was ‘the strength is in our networks’.

I attended the conference and was especially looking forward to attending the Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) cocktail. The cocktail was geared towards fostering meaningful discussions around the challenges women in STEM face and brainstorm on possible solutions. The cocktail was sponsored by ICT Authority in partnership with Oracle.

The turnout was great and had an almost equal gender representation which was encouraging. The session kicked off with a ten minute documentary that highlighted the strides being made by women in STEM in Kenya. The welcome was done by Njeri Maina, Oracle Business Development Manager for Africa, who shared her career journey and emphasized on the importance of mentorship.

The first speaker of the session was Esther Muchiri, chair of Women in STEM Kenya, who spoke on strengthening and supporting collaboration for women in STEM. “Do the policies in place support women getting into STEM? Are the women even aware of the opportunities available? In 2014, there were eighty one applicants for the ICT Innovation Awards. Only 17 of these applicants were women. ” She also spoke on the importance of women networking and branding themselves as a means towards career growth and being confident enough to aim for leadership positions in the sector.

The second speaker was Gilbert Saggia, Country Director, Oracle who gave a male perspective on creating a level playing field at the corporate level for women in STEM. “We socialize our girls in a way that discourages them from pursuing science based subjects and by extension, careers.” He challenged the women in the room to actively push for leadership positions in the ICT space.

Tonia Mutiso-Kariuki, Marketing Director for Microsoft 4Afrika, gave a female perspective on creating a level playing field at the corporate level for women in STEM. “Women in leadership are seen to be unlikeable. This is a bias that hurts the progress of women. Women aren’t smart enough for science is another bias that we need to get rid of. “The data tells a different story. Local African data shows that seventy-five percent of household budgets are ran by women. It is therefore not surprising that the data shows that companies with women co-founders perform better than those without,” she said.

Eunice Kariuki, ICTA Director for Partnership, Innovations and Capacity invited the leaders who were present to speak. These included: Hon. Dan Kazungu, Member of Parliament for Malindi Constituency and Hon. Eng. James Rege, Member of Parliament for Karachuonyo Constituency who reiterated that women should be at the forefront of breaking barriers in ICT in the East African region.,

The last speaker was Hon. Rebecca Joshua Okwaci, Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services, South Sudan who spoke on leading from the front and breaking barriers for women leaders. “My parents were very supportive. I was lucky to have a father who allowed me to go out and do things that were typically thought to be for boys. That it was what has given me the confidence to go after success. I am known in South Sudan as ‘Madam Fiber-optic’ and ‘Madam Gateway’. This makes me know that I am doing my job as the people can see there is progress,” she said. Hon. Rebecca also spoke on the projects she has managed to successfully deliver in South Sudan including, overseeing the building of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Services headquarters and the inclusion of South Sudan in the East Africa One Network Area.

The session ended with the recognition of four women who have made worthy contributions to STEM in Kenya: Angela Wamola -Women in Tech (WIT) Safaricom; Lynette Kwamboka- AkiraChix; Prof. Olive Mugenda -VC Kenyatta University; Hon. Rebecca Joshua Okwaci, South Sudan Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services.

My takeaway from the cocktail was that there is a lot of work still to do in getting more girls and women interested in pursuing a career in STEM, but that there is a great support network from the women who are already pursuing these careers hence it’s only a matter of time before the results begin to show themselves.