The  New WITU Business Hub.

There is a tremendous technological gender gap in Uganda with few women tech entrepreneurs and professionals which has greatly been flamed to by social cultural practices of gendering jobs, lack of role models, lack of self esteem and confidence thus leading to many young women not succeeding at technology careers and business. Right from childhood girl’s education is not considered as important as that of boys, making many parents without intending to, hinder there daughters from aspiring to be great achievers. Many are encouraged to focus on skills that will help them become good homemakers. Parents often discourage their daughters at the suggestion of a career in a technological field because they it’s a relatively new career path in Uganda and because of ignorance in the society right from parents, educators, policy makers and other stakeholders about the importance of technology in the future of employment, world of work and the growth of the economy. The world is increasingly becoming technological in everything, of course Africa has not yet caught up with these advances hence the lack of importance attached to it, But I believe that in 2030, Ugandan women will not be able to take on any jobs because they do not have the right training in the technology arena, and many available jobs will go to men and foreigners that have trained their citizens relevant technologies. The education policies right now in Uganda are not preparing the youth for the technological advances happing all over the world thus there is going to be career mismatches and importation of labor with the already few existing jobs, I foresee the problem of unemployment becoming worse unless we train our youth especially women in the needed knowledge of technology and entrepreneurship.  Our education system still focuses on training for employment rather than a creative economy that is entrepreneurial.

Its from this background that WITU is excited to be opening up the first Technology and Business hub In Uganda that is focused on young WOMEN!  Borrowing from the thought that women flourish and learn better when they feel that the ground is leveled, find support from fellow women and are free to make mistakes without feeling bad about themselves. When women train and mentor fellow women, it gives them the sense that they too can achieve just like another fellow woman has. We want to create an environment that supports young women to innovate, create and grow their businesses. The training itself will not be gender specific and we will closely work with our partners to help the young women create businesses, offer business skills training, ideation workshops, easy access to credit/ finance and accountability to ensure that the businesses start and succeed in the vulnerable first year.

The young women will not only have access to skill development but also mentoring by fellow women, networking opportunities, small investments, access to the Internet, hackathons, boot-camps, among other opportunities that we deem necessary to help move them along to the next level.

IT will be open to both women of low education and graduates, and the training will be specific to the needs of the members. The idea to design the space with some of the future users of the space is to help members feel like the own the space. We are working with different stakeholders to give the space the right environment to help these young women flourish in technology and business.

With our own home, lessons, our code girls movement for girls ages 5-25, to train in application development and entrepreneurship will have a permanent place for training which will allow us reach more young women who would otherwise not have a chance at education.

We have opportunities for volunteer teachers, mentors and inspirational speakers.

If you are interested in being part of this new Hub as a trainee please sign up here

or please reach out at  info@witug.org