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Addressing Digital and Innovation Gender Divide: Perspectives from Zimbabwe

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Entrepreneurship, Technology Commercialisation, and Innovation Policy in Africa

Abstract

Technologies have found their way into our everyday existence. While technologies hold the promise of unprecedented opportunities for disenfranchised communities, conversations around women’s access to digital technologies in Africa remain topical. Access to digital technologies in most of Sub Saharan Africa is limited to the passive use of mobile phones—one reason is the lack or inadequate levels of digital skills. Based on a practitioner’s experience and provision of digital skills training for over six years within multi-annual projects in Zimbabwe, the proposition is that interaction with digital technologies, supported by reliable infrastructure, and the right policy environment are all critical factors for the building of computational thinking and entrepreneurial skills among women and girls in STEM and ICTs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Digital literacy is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship(. It includes competences that are variously referred to as computer literacy, ICT literacy, information literacy and media literacy (Nancy et al. 2018 p.6).

  2. 2.

    Agenda 2063 is “Africa’s blueprint and master plan for transforming Africa into the global powerhouse of the future. It is the continent’s strategic framework that aims to deliver on its goal for inclusive and sustainable development and is a concrete manifestation of the pan-African drive for unity, self-determination, freedom, progress and collective prosperity pursued under Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance” (AUC 2015).

  3. 3.

    The leaky pipeline refers to attrition at different stages of education and employment for women in STEM and ICTs despite increased recruitment of diverse students and staff (Watson & Froyd, 2007 in Petray et al., Australia).

  4. 4.

    STEM identity is defined by Carlone and Johnson (2007) as a way in which individuals make “meaning of science experiences and how society structures possible meanings” (Carlone and Johnson, 2007 p. 1187).

  5. 5.

    The new government is quite aggressive in its approach, and has recently launched Education 5.0 which is centered on the Heritage based philosophy in shaping future technology through innovation and industrialization (Government of Zimbabwe 2019b). The current economic blueprint, Towards an Upper Middle Income Economy by 2030, stipulates that the government will pursue bold steps to empower its entrepreneurs and cultivate innovation at every level (Government of Zimbabwe 2018).

  6. 6.

    The Technovation Challenge is an annual global competition for teams of young girlsto learn and apply the skills needed to solve real-world problems through technology. Available at https://technovationchallenge.org/.

  7. 7.

    FIRST Global is an annual global robotics challenge to ignite a passion for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) among the more than two billion youths across the world. Available at https://first.global/.

  8. 8.

    The Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on ICTs between September and November 2017.

  9. 9.

    The Next Einstein Forum is an organisation working to make Africa a global hub for science and technology and hosts the largest biennial science and innovation gatherings in Africa. Available at www.nef.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Techwomen Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Aretha Mare

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  1. Aretha Mare
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Correspondence to Aretha Mare .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Chux Daniels

  2. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville, Spain

    Mafini Dosso

  3. Department of Engineering and Technology Management, Graduate School of Technology Management, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa

    Joe Amadi-Echendu

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Mare, A. (2021). Addressing Digital and Innovation Gender Divide: Perspectives from Zimbabwe. In: Daniels, C., Dosso, M., Amadi-Echendu, J. (eds) Entrepreneurship, Technology Commercialisation, and Innovation Policy in Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58240-1_3

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