The tech space is predominantly a male-dominated one with women increasingly finding opportunities hard to come by.
According to Adeva IT, as of 2018, women held only 25% of all the jobs in the tech industry, despite women making up almost half of the total workforce.
As part of efforts to create more opportunities in the tech space for women, Bolt – the ride-hailing app — on the occasion of International Women’s Day launched an initiative to help 9 women across Africa fast-track their career in the tech world.
In Ghana, three women successfully completed their month-long internship programme which should set them up for a career in the tech space.
The program christened, #DriveForWITech, provided a wide range of career choices, giving these interns an opportunity to join different teams in Engineering, Operations and Marketing.
Among these interns, Sharon Darko, was assigned to the Operations Department of Bolt Ghana where she seized the opportunity to improve her professional developmental skills.
She describes her experience as exhilarating. “There was not a single bad moment. I would not change a single thing. I improved on my Excel skills, I realised I work better in a team working environment while simultaneously taking responsibility for individual tasks,” she said.
Ms. Darko believes that the experience will help her manage the operational aspect of her tech start-up which is yet to launch.
Two other interns, Keziah and Rabiatu, assigned to the Marketing Department were grateful for the learning opportunity.
“Over the one month, I learnt about the Bolt brand; how to create locally relevant content that drives SEO growth, and brand marketing. I learnt how to create social media reports and also learnt how to create ads for Facebook and Instagram. I learnt about a variety of tools that could be used to analyze social media growth and interactions,” Keziah said.
Commenting on exactly how this experience will drive her career in the tech space, Keziah adds that: “Being a Drive4WITech Marketing intern has given me a new skill set and opened my eyes to having new career prospects. Over the internship, I’ve discovered new things about myself and also learnt how to be more resourceful.”
Keziah says she is planning on using the knowledge she acquired in marketing combined with her software engineering skills to develop projects that would solve problems in her society.
For Rabiatu, she also describes her experience as great and impactful which enabled her to achieve some level of growth.
“New skills I have learnt are preparing a social media monthly report, I can now work on excel sheets perfectly, create mock-ups for presentation and social media marketing in general,” she said.
The three ladies were unanimous about the usefulness of the initiative and they are hopeful they can use their stint with Bolt Ghana as a launchpad to greater heights in the tech space.
