Committed to fostering diversity in the African Tech Industry, Access Bank’s ‘W’ Initiative and Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF) are collaborating to establish a Female Digital Academy, which will educate over 500 women to become technology gurus over the next 3-5 years.
The Female Digital School is a female-centric digital academy that educates and prepares the next generation of technology professionals for the job market, providing them with skills, jobs, internships, mentoring and financial assistance for those in need.
For a modest cost of N25,000 and a 50% discount, the 3-month program offers a wide range of inspiring tech courses such as Mobile Development, Front-end Web Development, Back-end Web Development, Python for Data Science and Machine Learning. Applications for the Academy commenced from September 4th, 2021, will end on October 17th, 2021.
Speaking on the exciting initiative, Daniel Awe, Head of the African Fintech Foundry, stated, “The African Fintech Foundry is dedicated to promoting inclusion and diversity in the technology sector. This is why we are consistently championing causes that encourage gender diversity and equip women to penetrate the tech sector successfully.”
“The academy allows each participant to choose a module of their choice, equipping them with all the features they would need to assimilate its content fully. We are going as far as providing funding, internships and access to top tech CEOs and MDs to serve as mentors to the participants,” he added.
Highlighting a need for diversity and female participation in the tech industry, Ayona Trimnell, the Group Head/Coordinator, ‘W’ Initiative at Access Bank, said, “The tech sector has long been known as a male-dominated field. Given the critical role that technological innovation plays in varying sectors of the economy, the persistent underrepresentation of women in technology poses a significant economic problem if not addressed. This initiative not only helps combat this gross imbalance but is also particularly timely as the world continues to move towards a digital future.”
The Female Digital Academy is open to women aged 18-35 years.
In another development, the Corporate Communications Group of Access Bank PLC, has partnered with Haima Health Initiative and the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service to launch the Save a Life project. The aim was to address issues surrounding the low rates of blood donation in the country,
The initiative, which is an offshoot of Access Bank’s longstanding Employee Volunteering Scheme, was aimed at planting seeds of positivity by emphasising the lifesaving power within a pint of blood by raising over 200 pints of blood from donors.
Speaking on this project, the Group Head, Corporate Communications at Access Bank Plc, Amaechi Okobi, stated that Nigeria’s National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) revealed that only about 25,000 blood pints were sourced exclusively from voluntary unpaid blood donors that were screened, collected and distributed in 2019 and 2020.