BY BETELHEM BEDLU
Despite all the efforts that have been put towards closing the gender gap in the technology industry, the technology sector is still struggling when it comes to gender diversity.
A research conducted in 2020 revealed that females’ enrollment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields in 15 public universities in Ethiopia was only 15 percent.
Even though it is said so, there are women who dare to join the heavily male dominated industry and take up huge technology roles that have pursued and developed their career in technology and become innovators, leaders and entrepreneurs. Amongst such young women, Eyerusalem is the one.
Eyerusalem Zewedu, unlike many women would not dare or prefer to join the field due to many factors, studied Software Engineering. For her, the technology sector is much more appealing for women as it allows them to perform their duties without being subjected to time and location.
She said the technology sector is even much better than any other fields in terms of salary since it enables them to earn attractive payment.
The wide range impact of the technology industry globally as well as nationally, brought the women a better opportunity who are highly troubled by unemployment rate mainly in the technology sector, she said. Nonetheless, women have been shying away from the sector due to several challenges.
In reality, Eyerusalem did not have a plan on joining the software engineering field herself. But, the fact that she was able to score great result, allowed her to make the choice of the fields; and she joined the field considering the present inclinations to the technology sector in the world.
“I became fond of the software engineering subject when we were being taught at the campus and understood its area and scope, then I decided to study the field. “
As to her, there weren’t many female students when she joined the department. Unlike the male students, the majority of the subject was new to many of the female students. Though it was difficult at first, it didn’t take much before the female students to cope with the rest of the class.
Since most male students are privileged to explore more subjects, they have the opportunity to decide on the field; given their understanding of the benefits in terms of occupational and salary aspects.
Sadly, most of the male students including few teachers were against the idea of women joining the engineering sector due to the assumption that women are incompetent in the field. Apart from the support that female students gained from other genuine lecturers, they had to put extra efforts to score better results.
To the worst of the situation, the teachers used to assume that when a project is submitted and there are male students, they treat female students as if they have no contribution to the project. With this thinking, they were forced to form a group excluding males so that they can prove to their teachers that they can effectively do the given assignment by themselves.
No matter how lazy or negligence male students are assigned in the group, since they were assumed incompetent for the field, their effort and contribution to the project would mostly be taken for granted.
However, Eyerusalem and other female students, beating all the challenges, and debunking the attitudes of their counterparts, who were undermining the capability of female students, graduated with good results in 2020. Even her friends, named Oromia Godana, and ‘Tunga Tessema’ travelled to the Netherlands and Rwanda respectively to further their education in the technology field winning scholarship opportunities.
Owing to her best results, Eyerusalem was hired in the company (Vintage technologies) where she performed her internship program. Though she had to lag one semester due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she completed her education with best results.
While she was working in Vintage technologies, she again seized another opportunity to work in JSI inc. Company with even an attractive salary.
The gap in the gender diversity in the technology industry sector made her to be highly devoted to supporting her peers; especially female students to engage in the sector through providing training. Thus, apart from providing support to women, she developed software that is said to play a huge role in filling the communication gap between volunteers and the people who seek the charity or be part of charity works.
The ‘Volunteer administration database’ that she developed allowed the aforesaid people to easily get the information from the database. Like many other fields, volunteerism has its own gaps when it comes to information.
There are disadvantaged people on one side while the volunteers who want to provide service on the other side but with the gap in the information, many people had to go through rough times.
Amongst the charity organization in which the technology Eyerusalem comes up with benefitted was, ‘Danfe Charity Organization’. The founder and CEO of Danfe Charity Organization Enanu Hussien stressed that the technology helped their organization in various ways.
“It allowed me to address the people who I couldn’t reach out if it wasn’t for her technology,” she underscored. The CEO further underlined the multilayered importance of engaging more women in the technology sector to the society.
The other charity organization named ‘Bete Sayda’ who was founded and established by Alemtsehay Bekele was the organization that is using her technology.
As to the founder, women are still struggling to join the technology sector due to many factors. Despite the challenges they encounter, she stressed that joining the sector has a paramount significance as the job could be done outside of office since they have other roles such as pregnancy and taking care of children.
The Ethiopian Herald February 9/2023
