Women in tech to provide mentorship, training for 1,000 women

AS a way of marking the International Women’s Day, women’s mentorship organisation, Wentors, in collaboration with Microsoft, through its Microsoft 4Afrika initiative, is providing mentorship and training for 1,000 women working in the technology industry. 

According to the United Nations Institute of Statistics (UIS) less than 30 per cent of the world’s researchers are women.

Also, numerous studies have found that women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) fields publish less, are paid less for their research and do not progress as far as men in their careers.

Wentors is a global community of women in technology mentoring and nurturing each other through a platform in which experienced women in the tech industry can mentor upcoming young women joining the industry, and final year students looking to start a technology career.

The initiative was launched by Microsoft 4Afrika employee, EduAbasi Chukwunweike, a graduate in software engineering with her Masters’ degree in Informatics. Chukwunweike noticed that as a solutions specialist in the enterprise team responsible for the cloud business in Nigeria, most of her conversations within the customer environment were with men.

This got her thinking about how she could make an impact with gender diversity in the technology industry, and ultimately led to the launch of Wentors.

“We believe the people best situated to nurture these dreams are the women currently in technology and hence we are redefining the mentorship roadmap by building a global community of women in technology who nurture each other,” Chukwunweike said.

The organisation runs cohorts programmes, eight to 12-week periods during which each mentor commits to an hour-long weekly session with her mentee. The cohorts have weekly themes and provide the mentors with mentorship packages to guide them through the process.

A participant from Nigeria, Mirabel Oki, said: “in the cause of the Wentorship, I applied for an internship position for digital marketing and communications, and I got hired.” Another particiapant from Ghana, Christiana Odonkor stated that: “the most valuable part of the experience has been the conversations and advice from my mentor’s personal experience with regards to my situation as a wentee.”