 We have the topic of opportunities for women in tech that we are discussing now as our first conversation of the day, I hope you were part of our small talk that we had with Sakwa, an interesting one, and now we move on, and for this particular topic we have an expert, she goes by the name Sherry Oyerd, she is the program's officer, women's digital rights at Kigtanet. Thank you so much Stephanie. Glad to help you with us. Thank you. And she's a young person, a woman in tech, you know, you fit in right into our topic today. So when you talk about opportunities for women in tech, why do you think we, okay, I think I've just gotten straight into it, maybe you tell us what you do first at Kigtanet as a program officer, and your role exactly. Okay. So Kigtanet is an ICT policy think tank, so we catalyzed conversations and issues, policy on ICT issues, and our four working pillars are research, capacity building, policy advocacy, and multi-stakehold engagement, so basically just issues of ICT. And as a program officer in the women's digital rights agenda program, I lead that program in terms of ensuring that women in the digital space are protected, so we do a lot of research on issues online, gender based violence. We also agitate for changes in policy to ensure that women are, because you can just imagine how potent the digital space is and the opportunities that it presents. We also have a lot of challenges still, and there's still a gender gap there, so we are trying to bridge that gap through policy, and through also just highlighting through our research the gaps that are there, so that we can also now articulate what solutions we need to come up with to just bridge that gender gap. Alright. It's amazing, and you sort of almost answered the question I wanted to ask you, but let me just ask it again. We talk about opportunities for women in technology, so what opportunities is this? When we talk about technology, the opportunities in technology, what opportunities are this? So, as you can imagine, these are a lot of opportunities, and I think when COVID struck, as much as we had so much problems at that time, it just also just brought to the foresight that these are a lot of opportunities in technology. And the thing is, I don't want to only just talk about the very serious opportunities that we have, but also even in terms of entertainment, you have seen women also just joining online platforms, content creation for instance. Those are opportunities that are still you seeing. You've literally seen people really grow in the content space as well. But other than that, there's also as much as most people, the conversation usually is very catastrophic that technology is going to take our jobs and all that, but technology is also presenting opportunities in terms of job creation. At this point, there's a lot of space for new talent diversity as well. So, from traditional roles like web developing to now cloud computing, ethical hacking, those are now new roles that did not exist, let's say 20, 30 years ago that we now have. But other than even the employment and the entrepreneurial opportunities, there is also the opportunity for education you've seen. And I think still when you go back, when you look at COVID still and what it catapulted us to, that people were now more welcoming to the idea of online school and even taking smaller causes that are offered online. So you get that this opportunity for education, there is even opportunity because the woman carries most of the caregiving and the household chores. The fact that now there is that opportunity for more flexible working environment, for instance, now you can work from home and those opportunities didn't exist before. So you can still have your role as caregiver and maintaining a household that traditionally more women do that, but you also still are able to work because what you saw before was that sometimes women would have to fall out from their jobs because they had to take care of them at home. So that is still also giving that opportunity. Other opportunities, of course, are issues like, for instance, healthcare now is now diversified, it's more digitized. And when you look at issues of privacy and sometimes people just want to be in the comfort of their homes and get healthcare, for instance. So those are some of the opportunities that I'm seeing that are coming up. And of course, really on the issue of technology and work and the opportunities that are being presented, like the diversity of it. I don't want people to really focus on, oh, technology is going to take all of our jobs, it's going to automate, it's going to make it easier for instance. The mutant tasks are going to be taken up by technology and we now have to diversify and reinvent ourselves. I think that's quite well put and you've just brought in the aspect that it's not just, when you talk about opportunities, it's not just the jobs that it presents, but even the education, the accessibility of education through technology. It's how it easins the burden for the woman as much as you are a stay-at-home mom caregiver, you can still work regardless. So it's that kind of opportunity that is presented for women in technology. And someone might wonder because some people feel like we have really put the girl child up again. There was a misbalance, if I can put it like that, for a long time, but people feel like the girl child has already been empowered and now the boy child is being forgotten. So why do we need to continue this conversation of empowering the woman? Okay, so something I also forgot to mention that when we're looking, let's not look at it at very serious, also entertainment is also a good thing that technology has brought for women, we are able to entertain ourselves. But onto your question on the gender gap, I think there's a misconception that we really want to leave the boy child behind and all that, but when you look at even the SDG-5, that is the sustainable goal, number five is for that bridging of that gap. The ideal intention is to have all genders at par. So for a long time women have struggled with the burdens of pashaki, misogyny, all those things. And those things have pulled the woman behind, there are barriers for instance. Even when you look at technology in terms of even the uptake of women in terms of education, there's still a gap there. And if you have the gap in education, that means even in employment and even in leadership in technology, that gap will still exist. But what SDG-5 is trying to do is to ensure that women are lifted up high. And I think we all have a role, as men and women we all have a role. If there is any gap anywhere that you see, even on the men's side, then we have a responsibility to also fill those gaps and also just ensure that even as the boys children are coming up, they also are also empowered. The goal is to empower everyone and not to leave anyone behind. I think that's usually something that is usually missed. I think the focus should not be on lifting up one gender and leaving another one or anything like that. But just pulling everyone together at the same time. Okay. There's some I just read this morning. I didn't quite read all of it but what she was saying is that investing in women is the biggest investment opportunity. Do you agree to this? How so? I totally agree. When you invest in a woman, you invest, that's a good plan and you are more likely to reap the benefits because I think women have that, it's innate in them to lift others up as well. You've heard of things like when you educate a woman, you've educated a village and you've helped an entire village because I think our, when you give us a seed, we'll give you a whole farm. We always multiply and I think because of those and I mean like there are also men who will also do that but still I think empowering women at the end of the day, when you go back to in the homestead you'll see how women also are just trying to really uplift their families. So that collectiveness and that village and ensuring that everyone is taken care of, I think we have that innate in us and we try as much as possible. So I think empowering a woman is very important because at the end of the day we are in those families, we are in those societies and it has a ripple effect on everyone. Yes. There's also the perception, do you think women have embraced technology because when we look at STEM courses, for the longest time it has been regarded as that's a month thing. That's too difficult for women but we've seen initiatives that are trying to change that. Do you think that women now have the knowledge that we can do this? There's opportunities for us here, there's something that we need to do to harness this. I like that you asked that question and tying it back to when you're saying, when you're asking if the boy child is being left behind. Unfortunately when you look at the workforce in STEM, in technology, there's still a very big gap and what I was saying before is that from when you say, when you look at technology, it's looked as a very technical field that and because of the patriarchy and because of the belief systems and the societal barriers, there's that belief that women can't do that, it's too difficult, you cannot do that. And I'm sure you've heard of the phrase tech bros. We don't really hear about tech babes or something like that. But that also just goes to explain the fact that it's a male dominated area that women are trying to break into but also you'll have to understand the structural barriers that are there from the education, from what the woman is told at home that you cannot do these things, you are bad in math, therefore you cannot do these things. And what people also have to understand now is that tech, the T in the STEM, you really don't need to be a web developer. I mean having more women in those very technical roles is amazing but there's still other aspects that you can also get into. I have a low background but I'm still in tech. I'm still a woman in tech. So we are getting these, we are reinventing ourselves. These are diverse areas to also plug into and as women as well and just when I was talking about the education, when you start from the education it's too difficult and therefore that translates to less women doing technology related courses or even trying to get into that space. We look at the employment as well. The employment, if there are less women doing it then less women will be getting into employment and even when they still get into employment they still leakage in that workforce pipeline because of the very difficult work environment. It's not very supportive. For instance you will realize that in technology there's a very high value in working very long hours and that really does not support like for instance someone who's supporting a family which is really roles that also still fall on the woman as well. So you'll find that and even there's a lot of also because it's very male dominated and because unfortunately sometimes there's sexual harassment and all that, that means that more women leave that workforce before they can even get into the higher levels and that also now means that there is less women at the top in terms of leadership because of those really stringent work environments we still do not have proper procedures of promotions and all that. So you're seeing we still have a very big gender gap in terms of education, in terms of employment, in terms of leadership and when you talk about leadership if you have women in those leadership roles then they are able to articulate the needs of women they are able to articulate the challenges that women might be facing in these environments and therefore make life easier but if you do not have someone who understands those things then the gender gap still remains as it was before so even at Kickstarter we really advocate for fairness in workplaces for equality even in terms of the spectrum of employees like have a gender balance, yes. Okay, alright and you have mentioned some of the challenges but there's this one, this particular one that women face and it's online harassment because the opportunities that are there when we talk about tech and you've rightfully mentioned that it's not just about web development there's some of the STEM courses that it presents and opportunities but it's in the digital space so when you put yourself out there, let's say you're a content creator then you have put yourself out for cyber bullying, for harassment and such, that kind of violence so how do we as women deal with that? So at Kickstarter that is the bane of our existence because we've done a lot of research on issues of online gender based violence and the prevalence it is that we have in Kenya so last year we did a research that did not only cover that expanded outside of Nairobi because most of the research that had been done before was basically focusing on Nairobi as the respondents because of course Nairobi again is where most people the social media is a lot here but you also saw that it was very prudent to do it outside Nairobi as well and we got responses from a diversity of even in terms of age and what was fascinating about that research was that most of the men that we interviewed as well their response was that they had not experienced online gender based violence directly but they knew of a woman who had experienced online gender based violence and then of course even when you look at the demographics in the rural areas we realize that more women who are older above 40 years old experienced online gender based violence more than the younger ones maybe they are presenting themselves for political office or maybe a position in leadership for instance and of course in the urban area we know very well that the women who are more on the public platform politicians, human rights defenders, the content creators for instance they experience a lot of online gender based violence and online gender based violence the motive usually we found is other than maybe to settle scores also it is to just silence women so that they cannot use these spaces and what we are doing at Kikternet is also not only revealing what the challenges are but you also really focus on the solutions so some of the solutions are that we are now really the ministry of ICT and Digital Economies has a working group that is reviewing all ICT laws at the moment and what we are now also agitating for is for the definition of these forms of online gender based violence remember that for instance our penal code that defines what crimes are was enacted a long time ago the Kenya Information Communication Act was enacted in 1998 the computer misuse and cyber crimes act was also enacted a long time ago so some of these offenses were not really defined in and they are coming up, you can imagine even what AI is doing now with the manipulation of images for instance those are not things that we were before so when these laws were being enacted so we want those offenses to be defined because let's say for instance in the penal code when you define murder it has a very definite definition that prosecution has to tick all those boxes before you can actually say that someone is going to be convicted and so when you don't have these laws in the first instance then you are not also able to really hold accountable the offenders so what we are doing right now is we are really overstretching the laws that we have in existence right now to fit into these things but we want now more definitions for these things and also when we did the research we also realized that online gender based violence because sometimes it does not go into the physical realm people really ignore the impact of it but we have issues of psychological trauma depression, suicidal ideation after experiencing these offenses and therefore we were also proposing for psychosocial support for the victims as well other than affine or a compensation a monetary compensation also asking that we get psychosocial support and also more importantly let's say for instance a content creator is run out of their social media and now they cannot make money so compensation for them for the period of time that they had to live social media but also at Kikta Net we really advocate for digital resilience we have a cause on a platform called atingi that teaches women digital resilience because online gender based violence intends to run women out of social media and technology platforms to silence them but with digital resilience you can learn how to even overcome those things and still stay on this platform because of the opportunities that it presents so when you talk about digital resilience how do you overcome it? you have received this very insensitive comments on your page from a photo that you have posted saying something and it's not just that it's a series of many other things that have happened so how do you be resilient? so when you look at the cause a very good cause that I would recommend for any woman to just it's a very short cause you can really learn a lot it's on a platform called atingi but what we advocate for first is you know sometimes people don't even recognize that they are being harassed on social media because let's say on some sites we now have normalized it, it's called banter so the first step is actually understanding that this is actually harassment or this is a particular offense then now you know what to do and then also of course we in that cause we also really advocate for that taking time off for just understanding what is happening and then maybe having support from other people as well and also now the reporting mechanisms what most people don't understand even people who use a lot of these platforms social media platforms that they are already embedded reporting mechanisms on those platforms so we teach you how to use those as a first part of call that you use the platforms reporting mechanisms and where it does not sometimes there's no response or there's no action that is taken if that's the case you can escalate it to even reporting it to the police for instance and also following up on issues of prosecution as well so those are the forms of digital platforms for the digital resilience just ensuring that you are you are aware and also even in digital resilience we also teach you how to ensure that you are practicing cyber hygiene in terms of you do not post your location when you are there when you are at that particular place you don't maybe post about personal things that would also be used against you for instance so if you can't really post about your location at home this is where I live people will know where you are living people will track you people will dox you for instance you are seeing more cases of doxing now where people just share people's numbers for instance you don't post a receipt that has your number you are placing yourself to this risk so these are the things that we call when you take them whole family you can practice digital resilience so digital resilience and it has good cyber hygiene practices just how you should carry yourself you just basically you put out what you want people to see your personal information you limit how much someone can know about you especially for women in this space for women in media for women in leadership for women in content creation as long as you are in this space the digital space then you need to be safe as you operate on this platform as we come to a close on this particular conversation we have spoken on so many things but if you were to talk to a woman out there and just to challenge them as they are in technology then what would you be telling them and you can even I think my message would be that there is a lot of opportunities for women in technology and technology right now there is a lot of demand for diverse skills and talent as well so reinventing ourselves not really fearing that technology not just jobs and all that reinventing ourselves and just ensuring that you are ahead of the curve you are taking opportunities and again with even technology there is a lot of opportunities for education and also upskilling ourselves that you can take up so there are small causes sometimes you may not be able to afford an expensive masters degree or even a degree in the first place but there are a lot of opportunities in terms of many of just doing small causes and upskilling yourself even if you already have you are already in a profession you can still upskill yourself in terms of just getting a diversity of skills and then prospering in the end of course if you follow Kikta Net's work on all our platforms Kikta Net is KICTA Net so you can just follow all our work and you can see what is happening around issues of ICT and technology and if you are a woman you can also go on our website and look at the gender program you can see a lot of things that you are doing and to inspire you and to get ahead of the curve as well I love it, thank you very much Sherry we hope to have you at some other time I appreciate that I look forward to it Sherry Oyer she is the program officer women's digital rights at Kikta Net talking to us about opportunities for women in technology and this is amazing because it's not just the job opportunities that are presented with this space it's the education that you can access online at your convenience if you have so many things or if you can't even afford to go to school you can get the short courses you can be woke through the the small things the courses like what Kikta Net is presenting to us so you take advantage of this particular opportunity that we have and we had this conversation because we are still celebrating the women's day and it transfer the whole man so we'll be having such amazing conversations thank you for staying with us throughout this particular discussion brand sakwa is coming up Kikta Net