Cisco South Africa has expanded its Women’s Tech Connection(WTC) initiative to Nigeria to encouraging female participation in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields and provide women with a tech skills training programme.
Established in 2019 and spearheaded by Cisco South Africa, the initiative is part of the IT and networking giant’s global vision to help address the gender gap in the ICT sector by nurturing more women in the sector to become Cisco-certified engineers.
The design of the programme is to encompass a 360-degree professional development approach for aspiring network engineers.
According to Cisco, the goal is to produce women Cisco Certified Internetworking Experts (CCIE) in Africa, a skill-set that has been identified by the national government of SA as a scarce skill on the labour market.
According to the World Economic Forum, women continue to be dramatically under-represented in STEM fields and while female participation in Sub-Saharan Africa’s labour force has reached 61%, women only make up 30% of professionals in the tech industry.
Cisco recently celebrated the graduates of the local WTC initiative as part of its commitment to supporting regional talent and inclusivity.
“Never before has it been more important to spotlight women in the fields of technology and engineering on the African continent. With so much innovative potential being lost through a lack of representation and being positioned to institute real change and provide the necessary resources, Cisco is committed to helping bridge the gender divide in this important sector,” says Smangele Nkosi, GM for South Africa at Cisco.
“The success of WTC has resulted in Cisco expanding the initiative beyond South Africa. It is now active in West Africa. As of 2022, WTC has six chapters located in the South African provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, Northern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal. Our current base in West Africa is in Nigeria which is a central hub for us in the west of Africa.”
Certifications offered by the programme include a wide range of networking courses.
In its three-year history, the programme has produced two CCIEs and has built a talent pool of qualified certified engineers that multi-national organisations can hire from, notes Cisco.
WTC, to date, has 108 members, which include eight certified instructors, seven DevNet associates, and 93 participants working towards CCIE, Cisco Certified Network Associates, or Cisco Certified Network Professional certifications.
Elelwani Munzhedzi, co-founding member of WTC adds: “We are helping to put women at the forefront of their industries. Our goal in West Africa is aligned to the South African strategy, aimed at providing the region with technical expertise and resources into that highly competitive labour market. We have applied the same talent growth strategy adopted for the Sub Saharan region.”
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