Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / African Women in Tech

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African Women in Tech · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Chatting With
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the Experts, where I speak with phenomenal women from Africa, from
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the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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The mission of this show is to educate women, to inspire women, to
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empower women globally, and my guests share the same mission with me.
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Today, we have a very interesting episode, and we are gonna be talking
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about women in technology in Africa.
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My guest, who will join me in a few minutes, is Counsel and
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Senior Fellowship at the Geneva Center of Knowledge Governance.
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She's also the co-founder of and currently Senior Research and Policy
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Advisor at the International Lawyers and Economists for Development.
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That is for development
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she probably gonna correct me on this,
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ilead.org, where she combines teaching and research with providing policy,
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legislative advice, and technical training to governments, intergovernmental
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organizations, and civil society while focusing mainly on intellectual property,
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IP, as well as trade, e-commerce, women economic empowerment, and development.
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And with that, I want to welcome Dr. Susan Isiko Strba to Chatting With the Experts.
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Thank you, Paula, for having me.
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Dr.
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Susan, your bio is so impressive.
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Oh, my word.
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When I met you, I was bowled away, and now I'm reading it again, I'm like, "Woo."
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Thank you.
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Oh, my word.
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Thank you for joining me today.
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Thank you so much.
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Welcome.
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Thanks for inviting me.
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Of course.
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Nice to see you.
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Of course.
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Yeah.
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And I know we're gonna be talking about a subject that is close to my heart
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and I know to yours, which is women-
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Of course, 'cause-
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Yes
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… yeah.
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And we're gonna be talking about women in technology in Africa.
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So with that, let's talk about what does technology look like
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in Africa in the first place?
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I'll give the short answer which you'll find in most papers or most international
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institutions and organizations.
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It's bleak.
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That's the short answer.
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Bleak because we have someone else, defining it.
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But yes, it's bleak if you compare to Google, if you compare to Microsoft.
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But there is technology.
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That's all I can tell you.
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So the technology in Africa is, yes, especially to Africa, like
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a continent with many developing countries, but there is technology.
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You want a longer answer?
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Yes, please give us a longer answer because that one sinks my heart.
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But I know there are reasons for us saying this.
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Look, I'll take a step back.
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We are talking about women in technology.
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And I'll start with something which doesn't sound techy, so to say.
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Africa is mainly an informal setting.
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I won't say economy because Africa is not one country , it's a continent.
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It's a continent.
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But yes, a lot of informality.
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And what does informality have to do?
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Meaning that people are not working in white-collar jobs.
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They are not in formal settings.
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They survive with more like what my own, or my own work.
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But what does it have to do with women and technology?
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That informal sector takes up about 60 to 70% of the continent, and
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the women make up that informality.
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They occupy most of the informal sector.
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And that informal sector which sustains the continent
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is actually run by the women.
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80 to 85%.
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Repeat that.
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80 to 85%.
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Percent- of the informal sector is run by the women.
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Without counting agriculture, which is like known that's where women
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are working, but other activities that bring in the GDP is the women.
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And then how do we connect that technology?
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It means this group of people cannot be ignored when you are talking about
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development because technology, good technology, 'cause there's good and bad,
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helps the development of the continent.
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So you can't ignore those who are contributing 80 to 85% of the
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continent's GDP.
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Okay.
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You say 80 to 85 of the women, of the populace are women.
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Yes … and they're contributing to most of the GDP.
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But… we know as Africans it's a patriarchal society.
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So what are the implication for women in that?
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we may have, oc- occupy such a large percentage, but, is it being reflected?
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So the implications is that the women have a church.
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Remember, you just mentioned this patriarch.
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So the men are and should be leading.
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But the reality is when it comes to running the economy, much as the
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statistics won't show because there's the other thing, the women are not…
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their achievements are not recorded.
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And that's why they need to be involved in technology else, and hopefully
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record for themselves what is not being recorded by other people.
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Now there's a saying that who is not around cannot be hurt by a tree.
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A tree cannot fall on the person who's not there.
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So the men naturally record for themselves.
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But back to your question.
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The implication that these women who are holding the economy, who
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are contributing the economy, when we are talking of technology, they
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really need to have a grasp of it.
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Yes.
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And that technology, it has levels.
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There is now we are talking of the woman who is working in the informal sector.
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So what kind of technology are we talking about?
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The technology that will be useful.
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Precisely when you are talking of technology, there are
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different levels and definitions.
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And how we define it, how we look at it depends, Paula, on
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what we are trying to achieve.
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What problem we are trying to solve.
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Let's give an example.
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A woman who needs a drone on a big agriculture farm to measure
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weather or to communicate about the climate, that's technology for her.
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A woman who needs to use her telephone to understand health
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data, that's technology for her.
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You can say, "Oh, but the telephones are everywhere."
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Okay.
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If you don't know that there are actually so many who don't even have a telephone.
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That's all technology.
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But a woman who wants to use, who needs to use artificial intelligence-
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… to ask it a very high-tech question, that's the technology for her.
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So they are different.
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You see the spectrum I've said from the informal-
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yeah
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from the farm to the-
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High tech
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… Maybe fifth industrial revolution.
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I don't know what they call it, but that level.
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So we have women in all that spectrum.
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Even in Africa.
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So,
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with this research you've done, how can we?
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Because we are going from one end of the spectrum to the next
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Okay, let's start with, I don't wanna say the bottom end.
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Let's start with, because I said one end.
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The woman who's using a drone for agriculture.
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Because a lot of our women are involved with agriculture, whether it's
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industrialized or not, whatever the case.
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Even if they have a small plot of land, it's still agriculture.
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How do we leverage that technology for women in that setting?
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It's actually one of the things we've been, working on recently at the ILaED.
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And I don't mean to market myself, but this is a real example of something
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just being differently recently.
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We have women who have gone… many of them have not even gone to the university.
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Let's assume when you're that level, you have a hand on technology,
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though this is debatable.
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They have their farms.
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They are doing different activities.
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And for them, what technology means is to be able to tell people about
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what they have on the farm or in the small industries, and how much they
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can sell, and what they can sell.
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That's technology.
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And that comes with how you communicate to, call it social media,
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but could be other kinds of media.
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They need to understand how to manage that media.
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Here we're talking of marketing, but you need the technology-
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… to help you do the marketing so that people buy those products or they come,
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and one is able to put food on the table, but also take their children to
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a decent school and keep them there.
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That's a very simple example.
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And we are working with women who are working things as basic as batiks.
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But they sell their designs.
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They show off their designs using this what will look like simple technology.
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So
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now, this is using, well, for them to even communicate about the products
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that they have in their farmland, they need to be educated on, as you said,
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how to communicate in an effective way.
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Yes.
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So whether it's by social media.
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So that's another level.
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Yes.
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How do they get that awareness?
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How do they get the knowledge on how to market on social media?
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'Cause social media is, could be there-
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Yeah
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… but they need, even they even need the tools.
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they need to have the phones to be able to access the social media apps.
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And then even when they access the social media apps, to be able to know how to even
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use it to market- and create awareness.
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Thank you.
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That's very pertinent question.
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One of the things that we teach, and many institutions and guys are teaching, is
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how to help people use the social media.
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'Cause most of this technology, they learn very obvious things like
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click forward on maybe WhatsApp.
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Delete, whatever.
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But how to package them, how to reformat a photo, for example.
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Retouch it.
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Those are skills.
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But they are increasing the selling.
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Make the picture look better.
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How many people you send it?
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When you send it.
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Remember you're talking about women.
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They might be running three jobs.
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So they are doing most of this me kind of thing, the technology, where
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technology's really needed in the night.
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They don't have much time.
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After they put everybody to bed, they f- you know, so they are tired.
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So we teach them how to do it quickly.
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Oh.
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How to do it quickly and intelligently.
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Things like schedule your posting.
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After learning how to post, schedule them, for a whole month, that while you're doing
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other things, for three weeks at least.
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They sell that they do themselves.
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They work while they are doing other… As, people like to
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say, while you are sleeping.
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They are not necessarily sleeping.
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But you're not there.
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Yes, so there's that teaching.
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And talk of teaching, if I may go a bit further, social media,
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there's… now we get to the other spectrum of high-tech technology.
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For example, artificial intelligence.
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We also teach use, use it.
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How do you use it?
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Even before we are using, Siri, now you have all kinds of people, how to use
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those to program certain things for you so that you don't have to always do it.
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They don't have to do it and, you know- and, waste time.
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By the way, you talked about patriarch society.
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Not all men are happy to see a woman who is fixed on the telephone.
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So these kind of gadgets and technology is also to help them to still keep the peace
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at home-… and advance the same moment.
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Mm-hmm.
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Wow.
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So it comes down to sometimes not just understanding the culture, understanding
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the cultural norms within, Africa, as we said, is a big continent.
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Yeah.
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So getting familiar with how things work in different countries and
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even in different, societies or environments within the same country.
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Yes.
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That's in itself is complex and complicated, because there's some,
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communities where I guess it's almost you, culturally you may be changing
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the whole family setup by making these women even more industrious
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and, they're more tech-savvy.
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Because many times technology is looked at as like something that the men
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know or the children know sometimes.
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They're not… The women are kinda left out,
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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Actually back again to how does technology look like, most,
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opportunities in technology are to men.
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Those that are streamlined, like government is doing it, every
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known institution is doing it.
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But then women have, are also coming up to help each other.
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But, and you also have institutions like, for example, Ernst & Young.
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You have Mastercard Foundation.
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Even the regional organizations like the African Union, they have specific
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programs to teach women in technology.
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But as I said, these are streamlined.
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They are policy.
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They are big institutions.
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They may not reach my mother deep in the village or your
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grandparents, I don't know where.
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So there it's, you have, you need visionary women who are there
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to help other women come up.
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And they exist.
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And one of the things I could, for example, now if you get back to the big
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technology- the other end of the spectrum, artificial intelligence, for example.
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We have women who are working with, communities.
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DAIR, D-A-I-R.
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Okay.
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D-A- I … I-R.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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It's Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute.
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Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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So they're working on technology.
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They are building models, artificial intelligence models in Africa-
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Okay
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… for disadvantaged communities.
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And women are the first on the radar because artificial intelligence, I don't
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want to go into deep into the nuances.
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But it's a technology which is like it looks like it's owned by the
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West, by Google, by Microsoft, by…
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And there are challenges when it comes to African society.
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Not only Africa.
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The fact that it's developed outside.
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There are so many things that are not taken into account-… that
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are specific to Africa.
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Our languages, the culture of even just women.
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Women, how they dress, how they speak certain things, certain information
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that is divulged when it shouldn't be.
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A relationship with, between parents and children, so that's about education.
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And it's a role, you'll agree with me, of… it's not a role but it
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has an unwritten kind of law that women do the first training or
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teaching, educating of the children.
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Oh, yes.
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Yes.
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And even when they become men and they get out of the house,
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the woman continues to educate.
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So you have this technology that is developed elsewhere
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that does not cater to that.
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So on the continent you also have women who are coming up saying, "We have to
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develop our own models." We don't need to always have large language models
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like it has been preached to be able to develop artificial intelligence
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that caters to our own needs.
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And it is sensitive, if at all artificial intelligence is sensitive, to our culture.
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Yes.
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So there is one of, just an example I've given.
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There is, a noodle license.
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Noodle like the food.
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N-O-O- Okay.
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N-O-D noodle.
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D-D-L?
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N-O-O-D-L-E.
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Yeah, it's about how you use, artificial intelligence.
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The data you get to develop and how you focus it to the African continent
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but be careful who else can access it.
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So those are just, I'm giving just summary 'cause I don't want
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to get into the details of…
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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And that's to do with how intellectual property works, how commerce works, how
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then the artificial intelligence comes in.
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But it's women who are championing this.
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That encourages me.
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my heart sings as I hear that, that women are championing this, and these are women-
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African
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… African women.
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African women … on African continent.
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Yes.
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So African women are championing it on the African continent.
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Yes.
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Oh, that makes my heart sing.
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Yes.
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Oh my God.
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Because as I'm thinking that, of course, as you said, programming it
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to suit the culture, to suit the-
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Exactly
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… people, to suit the different, because there are many different languages, is
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imperative-… for it to be able to be used in some disadvantaged, and even
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some of the, in the cities themselves,
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Yes.
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and many times it has to be championed by people that they can relate
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to, people who they look like-
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Exactly
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… who can understand their cultures, and who they're comfortable with.
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The recipients of it- Yes … are comfortable with the teachers
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Okay.
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I'm looking at time.
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Oh, boy.
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This is deep.
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This is really deep.
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So what about collaborations?
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Are there a lot of collaborations between, yeah, we talked about disadvantaged,
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communities within the continent, which are within countries within the continent,
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and those who are championing it.
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Those who are championing, championing it, can't say that word today, they
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are collaborating, if I may ask, with Western, with the big companies, the
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big tech companies, and then bringing it, teaching, others to now take it and
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run and bring it to these disadvantaged communities, or even… tell me more
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about that, the collaboration that are within and beyond borders that we see.
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Yeah.
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For any thing that is worthy of a name or recognition, it's not only the
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energy and the knowledge that is spent.
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There's the brain.
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There's the money.
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There's an African saying that, "If you want to go fast, you go alone." Mm-hmm.
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"If you want to go far- What do you do?
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You bring others on.
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You go together.
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You bring others.
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You go together.
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And yes, collaboration is very important.
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We have spoken of languages.
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I've spoken of educational culture.
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I've spoken of women.
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There's reproduction, which, we shy of to speak.
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There are different ways.
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That's one, is collaborating.
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Imagine someone in East Africa.
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I'm from East Africa, so forgive me if I speak of East Africa.
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But they want to produce a product that is relevant also to West Africa.
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Now we are talking in terms of, artificial intelligence.
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You have to understand how things are done in Nigeria-
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Yes
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… what this means.
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And then you have the different language models.
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Languages, sorry, not models, coming up to achieve they are trained to
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speak a language or to speak to express things that is culturally acceptable.
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That's one.
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But then there's the other thing I mentioned about funding.
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So yes, there's needs to be a collaboration between the researchers
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who are researching these models, for example, I mentioned there, and
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the users of those models, and the funders, 'cause there's not always the
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enough money in one person's pocket.
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So there can be this collaboration or funding collaboration.
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Financing collaborations can be between the local institutions or startups.
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There are so many startups, by the way, in the field of AI in Africa and foreign,
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but there are challenges there as to who owns data, and you want data privacy.
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That's another topic for another day.
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But there are also possibility of collaborations between
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member states, countries.
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Uganda with Nigeria, South Africa.
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Under, for example, the African Continental Free Trade Area.
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They are working a lot on this.
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And under that framework, there's actual ready focus on women economic
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empowerment, so it makes it easy.
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And now technology and electronic commerce
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But yes, you also have local institutions like, I come back to
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there, so we've already mentioned it's a different… It's an easy example.
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They are collaborating with, with, institutions in North America and
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Europe to do research, but for disadvantaged communities, not for
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the streamlined American or Swiss.
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Yes.
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Needed.
24:12
Absolutely needed, Yeah … to work with the disadvantaged communities because
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there are lots of geniuses there.
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Yeah.
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Lots of untapped talent there-
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Yeah
24:21
… that you discover when you actually have, people from the streamlined communities
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going into these communities and-
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Yeah
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and teaching and making people aware of what is happening-
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Yeah
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… beyond their community.
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My gosh, Susan, there's so many questions I can ask you, but, in terms
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of time, I will leave it open for those who have joined us in the audience.
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But for those looking online, if we wanna hear more about, if they
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want to know more about what you do, how can they get in touch with you?
24:53
they can use, from professional-
24:56
Professional
24:57
… which I have two hats, you read there.
25:00
So for the, my professional, you can contact me by email on,
25:05
susan.isikostrba@thegraduateinstitute.
25:06
It's a mouthful.
25:13
So that- That's it.
25:16
susan.isikostrba@thegraduateinstitute.ch
25:25
Institute, I'm writing that down.
25:26
We'll put it in the chat.
25:29
.ch, okay.
25:31
All
25:31
And for the charity, which, is International Lawyers and Economists
25:36
for Development, the ILAED, where we support women economic empowerment,
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that's, uh, ilaed.org
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Okay.
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I'll drop that in the chat
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@ gmail.com
25:49
Okay.
25:50
Yeah.
25:51
And, are you on any of the social media platforms-
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Yes
25:54
like
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LinkedIn?
25:56
We're on LinkedIn.
25:56
X.
25:57
Okay.
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Facebook-
25:59
Okay
25:59
… and Instagram.
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All right.
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I'll drop all of that in the chat for those who would-
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Yeah
26:04
… love to hear even more, and find out more about you and what you're doing,
26:07
the impactful work you're doing for women- Thank you … empowerment.
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And for me, I want you to know, if you'd like to be a guest on
26:15
the show, like Dr. Susan has been, please reach out to me on my website,
26:19
which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
26:22
I'm also on LinkedIn.
26:24
my business page there is Chatting With the Experts, so you can message me on
26:28
my profile, which is Paula Okonneh.
26:31
I am on Instagram and my handle there is
26:38
@chat_experts_podcast.
26:40
And, Facebook, my business page, Chatting With the Experts.
26:45
And last but not least, please subscribe to our YouTube channel where you
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listen and you can listen if you want.
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And you can view the incredible women, just like Dr. Susan here,
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and all the work that they are doing to educate, empower, and encourage
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and also inspire women globally.
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Thank you so much … Dr. Susan, for this conversation.
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Very informative.
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And now let's open up the floor for those who joined us so that they can
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have an opportunity to talk even more with you and get to know you better,
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and you get to know them as well.
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Thank you so much.
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Thank you.