Chronique

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CHRONIQUE: CHOOSE TO CHALLENGE !

By Sheilah Birgen

A figure of the PanAfrican women’s tech scene, Kenyan Sheilah BIRGEN has been working for more than ten years to support young entrepreneurs across the continent. Specialist in innovation and strategy, she delivers exclusively solutions to improve the environment of women in Tech ON March 8th each year we celebrate International’s women’s day. This year, the campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Choose To Challenge’. A challenged world is an alert world. This theme is quite befitting for the technology industry and for African women in the digital space as it encourages women to take up more ownership in management roles in ensuring that the continent grows in hips and bounds in the digital Technology ecosystem globally. For the longest time, African women in the digital space and technology have gone through several challenges starting with the impostor syndrome in a predominantly male industry. Women in the digital space also lack resources, adequate skills training, lack social capital, funding and career growth opportunities. I believe to choose to challenge means being deliberate about growing yourself, creating awareness of those around you, campaigning for inclusivity for those who will use your product(s) or services and building communities. It is important to note that what we as women entrepreneurs do impact the community hence we need to be deliberate about challenging any norms that won’t challenge these shortcomings.

Inclusivity and diversity are essential in product development, customer journey, team dynamics, product usability and impact in entrepreneurship in the digital space in Africa and around the globe. Female entrepreneurs inspire me because they are quite particular in understanding the needs of the users and are more deliberate about the impact that their products or services create on their users.

Access to capital has been a major challenge for entrepreneurs in the continent. This is even harder for women historically and certainly now too. Access to capital from banks and other traditional financial institutions has been a challenge for women in Africa. Most institutions have required women to provide collateral and guarantee documents of ownership in a continent where for the longest time women were not allowed to own land or property. These systematic processes often lock out women in accessing finances. Access to equity or investor debt funding is still a challenge for women in the continent, with an estimated $42 bil-

lion financing gap for African women across business value chains according to a report by The African Development Bank. In 2019, less than 5% of venture capital funding globally went to female-led startups.

The gender financing gap is not closing despite evidence that investing in gender-diverse teams leads to stronger business outcomes which are especially true in the Technology and digital industry. Notably, female-led start-ups, those with at least one female founder, receive a disproportionately small percentage of funding of global venture capital. According to a report by Village Capital, only 11% of seed-funding capital in emerging markets went to companies with a woman on their founding team, as well as only 5% of all later-stage funding. Investors are crucial in catalyzing business growth hence they need to evaluate their funding models so as to be more intentional and inclusive around funding African Women. We have several African venture funds in 2020 recognizing this and are turning their focus to female-founded startups. We are hoping we will see more cheques going into funding these founders. Choose to Challenge!

As existing funds and accelerator programs are bringing more women into their fold, I also hope that we will also open up other opportunities for women in business and their careers. Funding is not the only resource that women lack. I also strongly advocate for training, mentoring and coaching too for girls and women. Unfortunately, our education system leaves out a lot of important skillbased knowledge that you require as an entrepreneur and manager. You will need a basic understanding of these: financial literacy (stocks, investments, taxation, budgeting, accounts, fundraising, debt and credit management) communication in the business including crisis management, negotiations, interpersonal communication, contracting, goal setting etc. You need those things in business and day to day social activities these days. So, even as we provide funding, let’s also open opportunities for women and girls especially in rural areas and informal settlements who might not be able to have access to these resources and institutions too. Let’s choose to challenge ourselves and the communities we serve.