East African techpreneur Neema Iyer works at the intersection of data, design and digital to eventually enable products, policies and programs that take into account the needs of African women.



ARE GENDER DIFFERENCES AS RIFE on the world wide web as in the real world? When technologist Neema Iyer returned home to Africa after graduating from Emory University in the United States with a degree in epidemiology and statistics, she was bent on addressing gender from a technology perspective. 



Born to Tanzanian and Indian parents and raised in Nigeria, 34-year-old Iyer is today running Pollicy, a firm she founded in Kampala, Uganda, as a civic technology organization that works at the intersection of data design and technology and understanding how data can be used most effectively for improving service delivery through research, digital literacy, digital security and products. 



When she first touched down, she took up a job in Uganda where she worked in the ICT sector, but under predominantly white, male founders from the West. There was also a lack of touch points in governments with the African context. So Iyer decided she needed a fresh perspective using a gender lens.



“When you really look at it like a lot of technology, a lot of data, the systems are developed in Silicon Valley and I don’t feel that African women are particularly the end users when they design different technology,” says Iyer. 



Pollicy, funded mostly by grants from big tech like Facebook and Mozilla, more broadly focuses on gendered data and feminist data, that takes into account power dynamics and the person researching. 



“If you don’t have this kind of data, then it would be very difficult to make platforms or policies of programs that really take into account the needs of African women and what are the challenges and what are the gaps,” she says. 



For instance, field research or product development would usually involve talking to the head of the household or people in authority, which would usually be men. There are many other situations where women may not be allowed to take part in research, and Iyer thinks challenging this status quo is more important now more than ever. 



“Women in Africa are least likely to be connected to the internet, so there’s a very big digital gender gap. And they tend to have lower digital literacy, they tend to have lower ownership of mobile devices, they tend to have lower access to information. So, when you take all of these things into account, you can’t just have a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone.” Iyer notes cultural differences in even who can answer a phone call or who can own a phone. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-914x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-51400" width="315" height="353" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-914x1024.png 914w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-268x300.png 268w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-768x860.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-1371x1536.png 1371w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Afrofeminist-Data-Futures-7-1829x2048.png 1829w" sizes="(max-width: 315px) 100vw, 315px" /></figure></div>



These restrict women’s voices and participation. And even those can be online, as substantiated by online violence and gender disinformation. “It basically leads to the censorship of women, it leads to them leaving online spaces…if you don’t really think about these issues from the gender nuance, then you can replicate a lot of the discrimination that already exists in the physical world.” 



For her, these aspects need attention to meet the different needs of people, and to build products accordingly. Iyer is also interested in combining art and data. 



“So, moving beyond just spreadsheets and trying to make data more accessible to people.” 



For example, her team worked on a project in Uganda called ‘Create Your Kampala’, where they collected data from local communities on different social services, and then worked with them to create wall murals as a way to share back their data and get people involved in the conversation. 



“[We wanted to say] ‘you own this data; this is your data; how are you going to use it to improve your situation’?” 



But the challenge is that a number of African countries are not moving as quickly as they should in using, supporting and protecting data. Data collection is expensive, there are many administrative hurdles, and it needs a lot of trustbuilding. Pollicy is about four years old and Iyer had hoped it would have made more headway in this time, thinking there would have been be so many competitors in the space by now. 



“When I look back, I don’t feel like so much has changed, like we’re still very much lagging in the conversations. A lot of the artificial intelligence conversations are dominated way more by other countries, and even though funders are trying to do more in the African context, there is just not enough happening. So, I would love to see more organizations coming out and doing much, much more work on everything from collecting data, to analyzing it, to processing it, to getting value from it… with a feminist lens.” 



Iyer asserts that data will really help drive innovation and improve services, because if people know where the gaps are, then they can improve business, creativity and products. There is, of course, the fear that governments could use these systems to oppress dissenting voices. 



“Everything we do is grounded in ethics and equity and inclusiveness, so that when you do build technology, it’s not used to harm marginalized people… we need to come together now to think about that and to come up with solutions… I feel like there’s this urgency that we need to come up with better laws that work for everyone.”



Another challenge Iyer notes is the need to make data as intersectional as possible. 



“You don’t want power to be concentrated… so really thinking about power dynamics when you use data, I think it’s that intersectionality of gender and class and tribe and ethnicity, so that you can really make equitable products from the data.” 



Iyer also hopes to expand beyond Africa’s borders and continue working with government and civil society to create a better world. “You know, crafting our futures together in a way that works for everyone; that’s equitable and that’s inclusive and we want to make our own decisions for ourselves; so I really want to push that narrative.”



BY INAARA GANGJI

Ninnojackjr 2

Driving Feminist Data For Change

It was controversial feminist writer, Maggie Young, who in describing her generation, best captures the DNA of the millennials.
“We lost the genetic lottery. We graduated into terror attacks and wars. We are often more educated, experienced, informed, and digitally fluent than prior generations, yet are constantly haunted by the trauma of coming of age during the detonation of the societal structure we were born into. We will have less money to buy the material possessions that entrap us. We will have more compassion and empathy because our struggles have taught us that even the most privileged can fall from grace. Our hardships will obligate us to develop spiritual and intellectual substance. Maybe having roommates and buying our clothes at thrift stores isn’t so horrible as long as we are making a point to pursue genuine happiness.”
Corporates and governments are tripping over each other trying to understand Young’s generation. The manual on millennials has proven to be somewhat elusive with tons of studies on this generational group that despite reporting on some common themes, have not nailed what makes millennials tick.
What we do know is that the term ‘millennial’ is about as old as the average millennial, coined in 1991 by Neil Howe and William Straus, in their co-authored publication: Generations: The History of America’s Future 2584 to 2069. They described millennials as people born between 1980 and 2000. This generation is also commonly referred to as Generation Y.
Millennials matter because they make up the world’s largest generational group since the soon-to-retire Baby Boomers. The first cohort of millennials is in their early to mid-30s, at the beginning of their careers, and will become an invaluable engine of the global economy in decades to come.
Millennials matter even more in Africa.
The African Development Bank has reported Africa has more than 200 million people aged between 15 and 24, about 65% of the continent is made up of millennials, making it the youngest continent in the world. Demographic forecasts show that this figure will double by 2045.
In just four years, three out of every four people in Africa will be on average 20 years old in Africa.
While millennials may be dismissed as a generation obsessed with selfies, they also seem to be intent on being part of finding solutions to the world’s biggest problems.
The 2015 Deloitte Millennial Survey highlights millennials are tuned into the purpose of a business – what it should do – as much as they are tuned to the impact of the business – what the business is actually doing.
Millennials are increasingly disconnected with traditional approaches to the workplace. They are easily turned off by stiff corporate structures and working within silos. They want dynamic work environments, they are not keen on putting in the slog of years working the corporate ladder, they believe in rapid succession, and they value mobility over the bum-on-seats approach. These insights are pulled from extensive research done through a survey administered to over 4,000 graduates across 75 countries by KPMG to understand what millennials want from the workplace. Although the survey was done in 2011, the insights will continue to shape corporate talent strategies for years still.
What millennials want out of the work of experience is like nothing before that. Top of the list of headaches is that old reward and recognition systems aren’t retaining millennials in their positons. Millennials subscribe to “loyalty-lite”, happily hopping between employees.
The unparalleled access to the internet and mobile phones is part of the millennial DNA. This generation has no concept of the world before technology. They take as a given that you can have a movie theater, your next taxi ride, and your diet all in your back pocket.
The Wall Street Journal in Millennials: Love Them Or Let Them Go reported millennials don’t just view social networks as a communication tool but as a global language that embeds them in various communities. Interestingly, despite the uptake of social media connectedness, millennials still value family and friends even though they will overwhelmingly engage with them on social media platforms.
Millennials value education and are more likely to spend more time investing in their education than the previous generations. The manual on millennials is still missing but if the statistics shared by the World Economic Forum that millennials are increasingly becoming the biggest influencers in the world, that more than 50% of the world’s population is under 27 years old and rising to 70% in Africa, it needs to be written. Yesterday.
&nbsp;
– The writer, a millennial herself, is a senior anchor on CNBC Africa, and presents the show Young Money on the channel.

Milenials_Jay-Caboz-8

The  New Biz Kids On The  Block

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s words cleanse the mind. They are profound, creative and thought provoking.
Adichie is the fifth of six children born to high achieving parents. Her mother, Grace Ifeoma, was the first female registrar at the University of Nigeria and her father, James Nwoye Adichie, was Nigeria’s first professor of statistics. He later became Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the same institution.
With a power couple for parents, Adichie acquired a reading habit by the age of four.
<div id="attachment_4221" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4221" class="size-medium wp-image-4221" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/GettyImages-474012284-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />554940367KR00003_Girls_Writ</div>
After secondary school, Adichie studied medicine at the University of Nigeria, switched to pharmacy, and then gave it up to go to the United States (US), when she was 19, a year and a half into her studies. She obtained a scholarship to study communication at Drexel University in Philadelphia for two years, and went on to pursue a degree in communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University.
Adichie graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2001. She later completed a master’s degree in creative writing at John Hopkins University. In 2005, she was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, and earned a master’s degree in African studies from Yale University in 2008.It was while there that she began writing Purple Hibiscus, published when she was 26. Her work has been translated into 30 languages.
Walk along Fife Street in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and you will see some of the country’s most expensive schools and scores of students sharing a laugh in the blistering sun. Look closely, and you will see many clutching Purple Hibiscus, a work studied in many high schools across Africa.
“Purple Hibiscus is one of the greatest books I have ever read. There is so much struggle and oppression in the book that I can relate to as an African. The ways she writes and describes things like heat in the book is intriguing and make it a good read. To see an African write like this is very inspiring because it shows that we can all tell our stories no matter where we come from. To think she was just 26 years old when she wrote it makes it even more intriguing,” says pupil, Charmaine Hlatshwayo, from Mzilikazi High School in Bulawayo.
Half of a Yellow Sun and the short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, were Adichie’s next great works.
She has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Orange Prize, the New York Times Notable Book prize, a People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of the Year prize and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist.
Adichie is often described as the successor of the late Chinua Achebe. It’s a fitting coincidence that she grew up in a house that once belonged to Achebe, Nigeria’s most celebrated writer.
“Because of writers like Chinua Achebe, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized,” said Adichie at her TEDx 2009 talk, The Danger Of A Single Story.
The talk has drawn almost two million views online.
Born in Nsukka, Nigeria, on September 15, 1977, Adichie encountered injustice as she grew up. As a result, for years, the Nigerian author has inspired many with her written work and become part of pop culture. Her speeches are as powerful as her fiction.
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the men.’ Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage; I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important… But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same…”says Adichie at the TEDx Euston talk titled We Should All Be Feminists, in 2012.
This talk made Adichie Beyoncé’s favorite feminist. Beyoncé sampled parts of this speech on her track, Flawless in 2014. The song reportedly topped iTunes charts in 104 countries and sold nearly 850,000 copies in three days.
“I think Chimamanda is the fearless woman’s voice that has become the drumbeat of feminism. She is intelligent, articulate and knows how to use her voice to speak for women on the international stage,” says Zimbabwean author Raisedon Baya.
But that’s not all.
Adichie’s latest book, Americanah, a best-selling novel, is being turned into a movie, with award-winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o as lead. Brad Pitt is the producer, through his Plan B production banner along with Nyong’o and Andrea Calderwood.
The founder and treasurer of the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa (ANFASA), Monica Seeber, says “ANFASA is delighted that an author has been selected for the FORBES AFRICA [lifetime achievement award]. This is recognition that authors have the power to influence people, events and thinking far beyond their own personal spheres. The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Adichie is carrying a banner for every woman who has grown up in Africa. In a few years, she has placed African women’s literature on the world map which makes us wonder what she will achieve in the next 20 years.

Tag: Feminist

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Driving Feminist Data For Change

The New Biz Kids On The Block

Adichie Is Africa, Africa Is Adichie