Zimba Women - Using Tech To Uplift other Women

A few days ago my 11-year-old son walked up to me and asked for a meeting…. If you must know we have these from time to time.

He told me matter of fact that he has changed his mind and no longer harbors the dream of becoming a doctor – of course my face fell, I was worried he might voice his intentions to go to the parliament to join the “Togikwatako”! “Togikwatako”! people like his friend’s dad, just for a few days so as to earn an embarrassing amount of millions in Uganda Shillings – I deduced that how the member of parliament chooses to spend it is entirely up to their conscience. (We had a prior meeting whence this was confided to me).

Back to the agenda of our meeting: “Why have you changed your mind?”, I asked. “I want to become a Coder – Mummy”, came the response.

Now if I hadn’t been a beneficiary of the 2016 Technology for Business Summit by Zimba Women who have since gone on to be nominated the 4th Women Lifting other Women Using Stem (https://www.techjaja.com/women-that-have-lifted-women-in-tech-the-zimba-...)  or taken part in the November 2017 Open Andela Café my next question/statement (with a frown of course) would have been “What is that?!”

In my 4years of running a faith based online outreach program with over 1,200 participants on facebook and whatsapp – had it not been for Zimba Women and Andela, I would never have tried to know who makes it possible. (I am always thankful for the internet but did not stop to think that there is a wonder woman in a certain part of the universe who ensures that an online counseling session goes without a hitch, that I can have little monkey come up on my phone screen with a simple tap when I need it. I just assumed these are enabled by the Grace of God J )

Well, my offspring had my full attention; okay…... He wants to code mostly to create board / video games, emogies and an app that has the current school curriculum so pupils who miss class during the term can keep up with their lessons. (I suspect I may have passed on the disinterest of copying paragraph after paragraph of notes / dictation).

I lauded him on this great move towards career change and preparations are underway to have meetings on how this can best be done though I am most hopeful that our first project will be the family meeting app.

The persons who deserve a standing ovation are the ones who are rooted in Tech but are also generous enough to change their language for the benefit of the lay (WO)man . I went for this summit because I was venturing into a business in which my male counterparts have the upper hand and I was hopeful that my extra knowledge of IT gained from this forum would gently shove me in the right direction, what I found instead, was a new world where Tech is a lifestyle that gives life to dreams and ideas.

I celebrate you!!