Equality is still a major conversation, and countries like Nigeria have a long way to go to reach the desired destination. But, we can talk about progress and the fact that the narrative is changing.
Women are now in spaces only dreamt of decades ago, and the best part is that women own some of these spaces. We cannot have a conversation about any field of endeavour without mentioning the impact women have had in that space. These women inspire us in more ways than one.
This is what led us to our list of The Most Inspiring Women in Tech.
We dug deep for these women, using experience and impact as our yardstick. And, we know that as the world celebrates International Women’s Day 2022, these women will inspire the new generation, continue the conversation towards actual equality.
One more thing: They are awesome women! You should read the stories written about them by Oluwadara Idowu-Kuola and Dennis Da-ala Mirilla.
You can download a magazine we created for these inspiring women below:
Jane Egerton-Idehen – Head of Sales, Meta (Middle East and Africa)
Jane has had quite an eventful career journey. She studied Electronics Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Ivy League universities – Yale and Harvard and the University of Warwick, where she obtained a Masters in Business Administration.
She started as an Earth Space Engineer, managing satellite links before going on to work top positions at big companies like Ericsson, MTN, Avanti and now Meta as the Head of Sales for Middle East and Africa. She is the author of Be Fearless: Give Yourself Permission to Be You.
Egerton-Idehen co-founded International Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Women In Engineering, Nigeria, an international professional organisation for promoting women engineers and scientists, and inspiring girls to embark on a career in engineering.
She is also the founder of WomenNCareers – a platform targeted towards women globally that want to grow their careers. The platform shares career advice, practical tips, tools and resources from different female executives.
Since officially starting in 2017, WomenNCareers has worked with other organisations to discuss the challenges facing women, and bringing awareness to them. It has also co-sponsored events like TEDXAjegunle women to reach out to women and young girls in underserved areas.
Juliet Ehimuan Chiazor – Country Manager, Google Nigeria
Ehimuan Chiazor bagged a 1st class B.Eng. degree in Computer Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. She proceeded to obtain a postgraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, before she went on to complete her MBA programme from the London Business School.
As Country Manager, Juliet has coordinated various women-focused programmes which support women in different ways – like the Women’s Techsters fellowship and Hustle Academy.
For International Women’s Month, Google is celebrating the sheer hustle of Africa’s women entrepreneurs through an integrated campaign called #LookMeUp empowering them with the platform and tools to grow their businesses.
Ire Aderinokun – Co-founder, Helicarrier
Ire’s interests in computer science made her take a design course at Codeacademy. Ire is a self-taught front-end developer and user interface designer. She built her first website at the age of 13 as a fansite for Neopets, where she had learned her first basic HTML codes. Ire also runs a blog called bitsofcode, where she breaks down coding tips to other developers.
Ire Aderinokun is one of the founding members of Feminist Coalition, a group of young Nigerian women with the aim of promoting equality for women in Nigerian society. She is a co-founder of Frontstack, a conference with a mission to grow the developer ecosystem by creating exposure to front end technologies.
Kemisola Bolarinwa – CEO, Nextwear Technology
Kemisola Bolarinwa studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Ado-Ekiti. Kemsiola is now the CEO of Nextwear Technology, Nigeria’s first wearable tech startup.
Nextwear Technology designs and develops technology worn close to the body by embedding programmable electronics and sensors on clothing to solve societal issues such as health and communications. She created the smart bra for early breast cancer detection.
Kemisola is an advocate for girls, as she is trying to bridge the gender gap and encouraging girls and women to seek careers in STEM.
Read more: Kemisola Bolarinwa, inventor of cancer-detecting bra speaks on wearable technology
Ada Nduka Oyom – Founder, She Code Africa
Ada is a Software developer and Open source advocate. She’s the founder of She Code Africa and Open Source Community Africa, where she’s focused on matters bothered around women in tech and Open Source respectively.
She Code Africa is present in 15 African countries, 32 chapter locations and has over 10,000 members. She Code Africa is a registered non-profit organisation aimed at empowering young girls and women across Africa with technical and soft skills needed to match our scale their careers in STEM.
Seun Runsewe – Senior Product Manager, ChipperCash
With a degree in Business Administration from Covenant University, Runsewe has very quickly risen through the ranks in the Nigerian tech space, holding several C-Suite roles at fintech.
She built Switch by Sterling Bank, worked as a Product Director at OPay, was Business Lead at Paystack, Vice president of Growth at Softcom Limited, and many others.
In her current role at Chipper Cash as a Senior Product Manager, she oversees the company’s products across 9 countries on 3 continents.
She has positioned herself as a rising leader in the tech space. Her career trajectory tells the tale of a woman in tech conscious of integrating technology with the lives of working women, especially mothers. She founded Biamo Money, a fintech tailoured to mothers.
Temie Giwa-Tubosun – Founder, LifeBank
When fintech was only just becoming a thing in Nigeria, in 2015, Temie took another route integrating tech with health in the Nigerian space. She started LifeBank using data and technology to deliver essential medical products to hospitals.
Temie, through LifeBank has been able to deliver medical products to over 10,000 patients in Nigeria in a space of four years. She has been instrumental in saving lives, especially in the rural parts of the country with underfunded medical infrastructures.
Olatomiwa Williams – Country Manager, Microsoft, Nigeria and Ghana
Olatomiwa started her career in the 90s as a sales engineer, and all through the years has solidified herself as a force in the Nigerian tech space. She has worked for Microsoft for over 11 years, rising to the top as the country manager for Ghana and Nigeria.
Williams has championed the acceleration of digital transformation in Nigeria, collaborating with the government and many other bodies to make the country a digital economy.
Fade Ogunro – Founder, Bookings Africa
After working years as a producer for Film Factory creating infomercials, and music videos for the likes of Wizkid, Fade pivoted and launched Bookings Africa to fill the space that she noticed was in the industry – finding creatives. With Bookings Africa, she has created a platform for creatives (photographers, artists, models, voice-over artists etc) to meet their clients.
With Bookings Africa, creatives can become instant entrepreneurs, and the hassle of producers has been reduced.
Odunayo Eweniyi – Co-founder, PiggyVest
Odunayo started her career as a content writer, but soon found her calling in tech. With friends from her days at Covenant University, she started PiggyBank which later became PiggyVest, the digital savings platform phenomenal for witty tweets and alerts, popular with millennials.
She has been able to redefine what it means to save for young people. Together with a bunch of female friends, she started First Check, a company that invests in female-led startups.
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
