TECH QUEENS CHANGING THE MINDSET IN GAMBIA

The Gambia is Africa’s smallest mainland nation, both in size and population. It’s also home to a growing technology sector, focused on building and deploying tailored solutions for the changing African digital landscape. Among its rising stars are women, many who have had to overcome myriad cultural barriers to join the sector. In turn, they are opening the way for other female leaders in the field. FORBES AFRICA takes a closer look at Gambia’s women in tech.

- MARIE SHABAYA

AWAMARY LOWE-KHAN WAS JUST 23 YEARS old when she became a Chief Financial Officer. It was a determination to succeed and give her son “the world”, as she now puts it, that drove her career to early heights. Years later, she leveled that energy at another challenge; technology entrepreneurship.

For over a decade now, she has been working in the industry via PointClick Technologies which she co-founded with her husband in 2007 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

This among a number of innovation projects led her back home to The Gambia, where she not only established the African off-shoot of PointClick Technologies but also The Woman Boss, a female-focused organization tailored to women and girls in the country looking to make their way in entrepreneurship and technology.

“Reduced access to capital is one of the biggest challenges women in tech face. Because of the reduced number of women in tech in the ecosystem, there is a lack of access to women mentors, especially back when we founded our company in 2007.

This also means that there is a lack of access to diverse and inclusive spaces for minority women,” she says.

The Woman Boss is part of a growing movement on the continent and unique in The Gambia as it works to improve the tides for women in the technology sector.

Particularly, in the tiny West African nation, cultural norms and related obstacles have meant that young women have little exposure to technology as a career option even if they make it into tertiary education.