The Sales, Marketing and Operations Vice President at Microsoft for Middle East and Africa, Celine Bremaud, recently spoke to Victor Onyeka-Ben, on the company’s STEM education in Africa. Excerpts:
Q: What is the level of acceptance of STEM education in Africa?
How has your program impacted on women in the continent? Has enough been done by
your organization to improve the situation on the ground in Africa?
It’s estimated that by
2020, 80 percent of all jobs will require some sort of STEM qualification but
Africa is lagging behind the rest of world in terms of investments in STEM
education and workforce development.
Microsoft has a long
history of supporting STEM education on the continent with a particular focus
on the “T” for technology and computer science education. Our work has
primarily focused on closing the “digital divide” - helping students,
educators, and young adults gain the basic digital literacy and learning skills
required in today’s technology-driven world.
When it comes to women,
Microsoft also realizes that women of all ages are underrepresented in STEM
fields. It’s a well-known fact that globally, only 14 percent of the STEM
workforce consists of females. Having more women enter the STEM workforce will in turn
drive economic growth, equality and innovation. In fact, bringing 600
million additional women to the ICT sector
can boost the GDP of developing countries by an estimated US$13 billion. We therefore want to
create a culture where more women are attracted to STEM and see themselves
having a career path in the technology industry.
With this in mind, Microsoft
is actively empowering
young girls on the continent to study STEM subjects at school and university and
encouraging women to pursue careers in STEM fields. We have many programmes aimed at
increasing participation of women in STEM fields across the continent.
Our
most recent programme is our annual #MakeWhat’sNext campaign in celebration of International
Women's Day. On an annual basis, Microsoft launches an awareness campaign globally
and regionally to encourage young women to pursues careers in STEM with a
particular focus on computer science. This year, the campaign covered 14 countries
in the Middle East and Africa reaching over 23 million young women and parents.
We also upskilled over 293, 600 young girls with the main goal of the campaign being
to address the stereotypes and misconceptions that discourage women from
pursuing careers in STEM. The campaign
ran from International Women's Day on 8 March and culminated on International
Day for Girls in ICT which falls on 26 April.
Q: How have the programs assisted in advancing the ideals of STEM
especially in bridging the gender gap particularly in the region(s) that you
cover?
Microsoft is involved
in a wide range of programs aimed at attracting, recruiting, retaining, and
developing women from around the world in the field of computer technology and
STEM subjects. We have embarked on a variety of initiatives in the in MEA
region to that effect. Here are some of our flagship programs:
Microsoft Digital Skills program is a global program that seeks to
ensure that all youth have the opportunity to learn digital skills and computer
science through unique programs and partnerships with governments, business,
and non-profit organizations such as Code.org.
Under this
initiative, we also sponsored a number of programs dedicated to empowering
women such as:
à
Technology for Social Change and
Development Initiative
The
Technology for Social Change and Development Initiative will partner with the
Federal and State Ministries of Women Affairs across 12 states in Nigeria to
establish the Nigerian Women Techmakers program, an experiential learning
program aimed at building digital literacy, coding and analytical skills in
young women. The Nigerian Women Techmakers program will train 2,400 young women
through a three-month program that includes technical training, mentoring,
hackathons and workshops.
à
The African Centre for Women,
Information & Communications Technology
The
African Centre for Women, Information & Communications Technology (ACWICT)
creates opportunities for youth from poor and disadvantaged areas in Kenya to
pursue careers in the technology industry. 9,000 young women are introduced to
digital skills training, including introduction to computer systems, hardware
and software components, computer applications, and programming and coding.
à
FAWE (Forum for African Women
Educationalist)
Microsoft
has also supported FAWE since 2016 in 10 African countries to train youth,
teachers and students to adopt and use STEM curricula, teaching and learning
materials and classroom practices that are gender-responsive. This is conducted
through at least 30 schools per country with each center reaching over 1,000
girls directly. In 2017, two teams per country presented their innovations at a
Pan-African Innovation competition in Lusaka Zambia.
à
Aspire Women
Aspire
Women is an Egyptian initiative to help underserved women realize their career
dreams, by breaking the barriers hampering their socio-economic development.
The three-year program was designed to empower 25,000 young women in Egypt
through access to technology.
à
Leveraging our employees
Microsoft
ran mentorship programs in Kenya and Egypt benefitting 600 young women with
skills development and career enablement in technology and business.
à
Cloud Startup Academy
Microsoft
also launched the Cloud Startup Academy to help women entrepreneurs launch
businesses with the help of cloud technology. Since launching the program, 22
new cloud-based startups have been created and 19 women have been placed in
permanent jobs.
Q: Are you willing to partner with NGOs in taking the program
closer to women? Will you for instance, have a working partnership with
Africanewscircle.com or other NGOs known to it to take the STEM program closer
to women across Africa?
Microsoft
does most of its philanthropic work on the continent either with or through nonprofits.
We rely on our nonprofit partners to share learnings and bring opportunities to
the most underserved populations and we have multiple partners across the
Middle East and Africa. We’ve mentioned a few of them above but we also work
with many others across the region.
Q: What do you think should be done to get more women involved in STEM
education? Are you doing that already or have done anything in that direction?
At
Microsoft, we believe diversity fosters greater innovation. With this belief in
mind, we strive to be a leader in attracting women to careers in technology. We
start early in the pipeline by sparking girls’ interest in technology careers.
We promote the study of computer science at traditionally women’s colleges and
other universities. We also invest in women-focused organizations, seek out
women-owned suppliers, and provide support to women once they are employees at
Microsoft.
Understanding the need to invest in a future workforce
that is diverse and inclusive, we’ve created specific programs around the
development and hiring of diverse talent, including high school internship programs
and college recruiting efforts such as YouthSpark, DigiGirlz and Explore
Microsoft internships.
Our annual #MakeWhatsNext initiative aims to increase the
number of girls interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
careers by introducing them to lesser-known female inventors. We believe that
by expanding these young girls’ imaginations by showing them what's possible in
STEM fields will attract more women to STEM fields.
Q: How widespread or accessible, is your digital program to women
in Africa? Can you give specific examples of where you have implemented the
digital program in Africa? Do you have plans of expanding the program?
We have
implemented programs in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Senegal,
Cote D ‘Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi
and Uganda.
One
example is DigiGirlz, a Microsoft YouthSpark program
that gives middle and high school girls’ opportunities to learn about careers
in technology, connect with Microsoft employees, and participate in hands-on
computer and technology workshops. In the last 4 years, Microsoft has hosted
DigiGirlz Days in 7 countries and in 2018, events have been planned for 10
countries including Ivory Coast, Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania, Botswana,
Kenya, Zambia, and Uganda.
As
part of our YouthSpark cash grants, Microsoft has also partnered with the
Zariah Elizabeth Foundation which empowers women through education. With
support from Microsoft, 50,000 young women will receive digital skills training
in the next year through a train-the-trainer program in UNESCO community
centers. 2,000 teachers and trainers will receive training and support to
effectively teach digital skills.
Q: Is there anything that has been
done differently that makes women in the Middle East earn more STEM degrees
than their counterparts in the rest of the world.
According
to the World Bank, 13 of the 15 countries with the lowest rate of female
participation in the workforce are in the Arab world; however, the UAE is a
notable exception.
Diverse
perspectives are vital to developing and scaling 21st-century technologies.
Women in the UAE for example make up 66 percent of the public sector workforce,
of which 30 percent are in leadership roles. The 27.5 percent of women who make
up the UAE cabinet all play key roles in supporting technology and innovation
in the country. Here, women are not a stark minority in technology
sector—they’re a part of all the major tech initiatives and, in many instances,
leading them. We in the Africa region can learn many lessons from the region in
terms of attracting more young girls to study STEM subjects and encouraging
more women to pursue careers in STEM-related fields.
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