The Protection Initiative Against Cyber Crimes (C-C Pro), a non-profit organisation in Nigeria, is empowering young people, with a focus on the girl child, to harness their potential in innovation and technology, as well as promoting safety in cyberspace.
The Teen-Tech Nigeria Mentorship Programme, organized by C-C Pro in Abuja, Nigeria, brought together tech experts to mark the Observance Awards for Creativity and Innovation Day and the International Girls in ICT Day.
The meeting had over 200 teenage tech students drawn from various schools and orphanages in the Federal Capital Territory.
According to UN Worldwide, only 30 percent of tech science and technology professionals are women. This lack of representation can perpetuate gender biases in technology design and development and limit opportunities for women to shape the future of technology.
The latest data from International Telecommunications Union reveals that there is gender gap of 12.5 percent in terms of internet usage globally.
To this end ,the Co-Founder and CEO of C-C Pro,Delmwa Gogwim said, one of the most important things to empower girls in ICT is to provide them with role models and mentorship programmes.
She gave insight on the organization’s inclusive approach, targeting orphans as well to ensure no one is left behind in the tech revolution.
“With all these people, there is no way that a child will not learn one or two things from them. We have children from public and private schools, we have orphans. We target orphans as well as a special part of our programme. Sometimes orphans don’t have mentorship, but we are going to be breeding some of the biggest innovators from our orphanages as well,” said Gogwim.
Also Read: Girls in ICT: Stakeholders call for more mentorship to close gender gap
Experts at the event advocated for creativity and innovation in problem-solving to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and discuss possibilities that abound for teenagers in the technology space.
Also, the event called for increased institutional commitments to expose the country’s youth population to technology from an early age .
Dr. Chuks Ekwueme, the Chairman of Uniccon Group, which launched Africa’s first humanoid robot, underscored the pivotal role of young people in societal growth, stressing the importance of early exposure to technology to foster innovation and creativity.
As one of the Teen-Tech Mentors, Dr. Ekwueme encouraged youths not to be intimidated by technology but rather inspired by it.
Nigerian robotics and embedded systems engineer Kemisola Bolarinwa, who inverted a smart bra capable of diagnosing early-stage breast cancer identified the teenage years as a period for self-discovery and urged young people to explore the realms of creativity to drive positive change.
Other experts who emphasized the importance of mentoring young talent were Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda and Hon.Agbaje Olawale Ibrahim underscored the need for critical support across sectors to build the capacity of young people in addressing challenges through technology.
They emphasized the pivotal role of institutional support, starting from the educational system.
The “Teen-Tech Mentorship Program and newly launched Young Cybersecurity Ambassador Award serve as a prelude to the Nigerian Teen Cyber Festival (ngTeenCyberFest 2024), slated to take place inside Baze University on September 26th, coinciding with the global celebration of the International Day for Access to Universal Information.
