Series6:How Technology can help break the gender bias, Young Leaders Perspective

Sophia Bekele

Sophia is a well-known businesswoman, multinational entrepreneur, corporate governance expert, global policy advisor, and public engagement professional, as well as an activist and philanthropist with extensive expertise in both the public and private sectors.

Sophia has developed and operated several international tech start-ups, as well as successfully implementing successful nation-building digital infrastructure projects in Africa and bringing early-stage US corporations into new markets.

www.sophiabekele.com

Temitope (Odeyomi) Adeniyi

Founder STEM Zone| Data Scientist| Ph.D. Candidate, Condensed Matter Physics| Advocate Women-in-STEM| Product Manager

Temitope is the Founder of STEM Zone Nigeria. it is a subsidiary of ZionIT Company Limited, a company dedicated to encouraging creativity and invention in Africa by inspiring young minds through innovative learning techniques that emphasize hands-on experience and real-world applications to tackle real-world problems.

She is a driven and dedicated individual who is interested in emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Her Ph.D. research focuses on utilizing Machine Learning to forecast novel materials. She is also a trained Data Scientist with experience working on a variety of data-related initiatives.

As part of her initiative, she teaches young girls how to use technology to tackle community problems.

Hiba S Sharief

CxO & & Startup Advisor | Global Thought Leader | Intersection of Innovation & Humanity | Investor | Board Membe, Founder of Elevoro, Silicon Valley’s “40 under40” in 2017 by SVBJ, Sudan’s Women in Africa Ambassador.

Hiba Sharief, an outstanding leader, was named one of Silicon Valley’s “40 under40” in 2017 by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and has been selected as Sudan’s Women in Africa Ambassador. Her knowledge and experience in digital transformation, business value generation, IT strategy, and innovation covers many industries and more than 30 countries, as a former CIO and Chief Digital Officer. Hiba created Elevoro in2018, a global network of leaders that share a set of ideas centered on pushing innovation while improving people’s lives. Her devotion to bettering people’s lives has led her to work on a wide range of issues, from financial inclusion to shifting the gender ratio in technology and leadership.

Hiba has a remarkable capacity to spot talent, nurture it, and help it grow.

Fortunate (Ndo) Twala

Life Coach, Brand Ambassador, Key Note Speaker, Pageant Judge, Social Entrepreneur, Radio Presenter

Fortunate has received certification as a Life Coach (your Best Version Coach)
.She is an ex-South African Airways flight attendant, working as a safety officer. She is a Key Note Speaker & Motivational Speaker to Women & Youth at Schools. She has Judged Pageants. She is Former Mrscommonwealthsouthafrica2019, MrsSATop50 2020. She is a Part-time Radio host for Alex Fm. She is a Philanthropist running the NGO of Elderly, & NPO zandiles Daycare center.

Georgina Mbira

Two-time Award-Winning TV Host | Events Host | Voice Artist.

Georgina Mbira is a two-time award-winning TV Host, Events Host, and Voice Artist. She is most notable as the Former host of ‘Our Perfect Wedding’ on Maisha Magic East.

Jumoke Dada

With years of experience in the design sector and a first-class architecture degree,

Jumoke evolved her tech-enabled E-Commerce business that uses mixed reality to sell furniture in Lagos, Nigeria, from zero capital to a multi-million dollar business in just a few years.

She has received grants and honors such as ;

● Tony Elumelu Foundation Award as one of 1,000 entrepreneurs that will shape
the future of Africa,

●Diamond bank Building entrepreneurs Awards

● She Leads Africa Accelerator Award for young Female-led Businesses leveraging technology to create better African communities

● Jumoke has been featured on Elle Decoration South Africa as one of Africa’s creative doing
something interesting on the continent at the moment

● She has been featured in BBC World News interview talking about the challenges facing young entrepreneurs in Africa

● Taeillo Brand which she founded was selected as one of the start-ups to represent Africa at the Google Pitch-Drive Asia event where they toured 5 Asian Cities Pitching to investors and sharing the Asian Community the great work done by young entrepreneurs in Africa

●Harambean, Pritzker Fellow

●Nasdaq Milestone Maker Fall 2020 Cohort

●#100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria List — #LLA100Women2021

●HerNetwork Woman of the Year Entrepreneurship 2021

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Former Liberia President

With over 15,000 UN peacekeepers in the country and an unemployment rate of 80%, Johnson Sirleaf faced significant challenges. She sought debt relief and assistance from the international community right away. Liberia’s entire debt had been erased by late 2010, and Johnson Sirleaf had secured millions of dollars in foreign investment.

Anie Akpe

Founder: IBOM LLC | Innov8tiv & African Women In Tech (AWIT)

Anie is the Founder of African Women In Tech (AWIT). She is an experienced Vice President of Mortgage with a proven track record in the banking industry. Mortgage Marketing, Commercial Lending, Banking, Credit Analysis, and Entrepreneurship are some of her specialties. Dowling College produced a strong business development practitioner.

Farida Bedwei

Farida Nana Efua Bedwei is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Logiciel (Ghana) Ltd, a microfinance software firm. Her job entails analyzing the business and devising practical solutions that are simple to implement even for those with no professional banking training. She feels that the informal sector, which accounts for 60-70 percent of Africa’s population, deserves the same banking services as the formal sector. As a result, the microfinance business will be able to reach its full potential and provide acceptable financial services to its consumers by developing cheap banking systems for them.

Farida worked in the telecom software sector before co-founding Logiciel, producing mobile gateways and services for mobile networks and content providers. Farida is also an author and a disability rights advocate who has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including CNN African Voices in February 2015. She’s also received a slew of national and international honors, including being named the most powerful woman in business and governance (financial sector) for her work in computerizing the microfinance industry.

Farida is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Fortunate Twala

Fortunate is a Radio Presenter, Host for Alex FM, Life Coach, Social Entrepreneur, Brand Ambassador, Key Note, and Motivational Speaker to Women & Youth. She is Former Ms. Common Wealth South Africa 2019 and Ms. South Africa Top50 2020.

David Lumala

Eng. David Lumala worked as Solutions Arcitech at Crystal Clear Solutions LLC, Uganda, and as Web3.0 DApps Developer at Millennial Lts, modeling smart contracts, modeled Crypto, DeFi, Dex, DApps, DAOs , NFTs and metaverses. Prior to that he was a Software Engineer Software Engineer at Swico Ltd.

Elizabeth Kolade (Nigeria)

Director of Membership, Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) | Top 50 Women in Cybersecurity Africa | International Fire and Security Exhibition and Conference (IFSEC) Global awards 2021.

Elizabeth Wuraola Kolade is a Cybersecurity professional. She has been involved in the strategy, creation, and implementation of security measures and the delivery of cyber security awareness across critical organizations. Elizabeth has served as an Analyst, Technical Specialist, and Advisor over the course of her career across government, the private sector and civil society. She has embarked on numerous campaigns to promote end-user security education in and outside Nigeria. Her interest spans Incident Response, Cyber Policy, Cyber Capacity Building, and Cyber Diplomacy, all geared towards enhancing and sustaining international peace and security.

Elizabeth is a Fellow of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and has been a part of several multi-stakeholder engagements on Cyber Security in and outside Africa. She was listed as one of the Top 50 Women in Cybersecurity in Africa in 2020. In 2021, she was named a Global Influencer in the IFSEC Global Awards under the “Security – One to Watch” Category and was soon after nominated for the 2021 Young CISO of the Year Awards. Elizabeth served as a member of the presidential committee, which reviewed and produced Nigeria’s National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy (NCPS) 2021. She is the current Director of membership of the Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) and remains an ever-avid advocate for the education of women in technology.

H.E. Sen. Samuel L. Poghisio, EGH, MP , Former Minister of ICT, Kenya,

H.E. Samuel Losuron Poghisio is a Kenyan politician serving as the incumbent Majority Leader of the Kenyan Senate. He was first elected to the parliament in 1988, and also in 1997 and 2002, representing the KANU party. His H.E. was also a former Chairman of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (2014-2017), responsible for policy development and oversight and Minister Ministry of Information and communications (2008-2013) Kenya, providing overall direction on policy, performance contracting and advancing ICT in Kenya.

Ramaswamy Krishnamani

Anathi Mtila

Senior Cyber Security specialist at South African Reserve Bank and BCX, Cyber Defence manager at MTN – South Africa

Sherifat Akinwonmi

Sherifat is a Cyber Security professional with work experience across diverse industries including Agriculture, Oil & Energy services, Pharmaceuticals, Financial and IT services.
Currently a Business Information Security Officer (BISO) with one of the top banks in Northern America. She holds a master’s degree with distinction from University of Salford, UK and Bachelor’s degree with First class honors in Computer Science and Technology from Bowen University, Nigeria.

She holds several cyber security professional certifications such as Certified Cloud Security Professional CCSP, Certified Information Systems Security Professional CISSP, CCISO, ISO27001 LI amongst several others.

She has great passion and interest for enabling women in their professional career. She servers as a member of several boards including Advisory Board for Canadian Women in Cybersecurity, Girls & Women Technological Empowerment Organization (GWTEO) past mentor of Cybersafe 2021 program, and also a co-founder of Women in Cybersecurity & Technology (WICT).

She volunteers her time mentoring young people to launch their career in Technology and supports the less privileged.

Joylynn Kirui

Senior Cloud Security Advocate at microsoft | Principal Cyber Assurance officer at Safaricom | Top 50 Women in Cyber Security Africa 2020 | Mentor | Speaker

Salah Dean

Cyber security and forensic club president | Network Engineer – Core Infrastructure Services and Security |

Eve Kilel

Program Manager, Cloud Security – CxE at Microsoft | Founder ShehacksKE | Former Cyber-security Analyst at Safaricom | Senior Cyber-security Consultant at EY

Kayne McGladrey

CISO, HyperProof | Cyber Security Influencer and expert | Spokesperson Global Cybersecurity Thought Leader | IEEE Senior member Kayne McGladrey, CISSP is the field CISO for Hyperproof and a senior member of the IEEE. He has over two decades of experience in cybersecurity and has served as a CISO and advisory board member, and focuses on the policy, social, and economic effects of cybersecurity lapses to individuals, companies, and the nation

Series6:How Technology can help break the gender bias, Young Leaders Perspective

Video

Event Chair

Georgina Mbira

Two-time Award-Winning TV Host | Events Host | Voice Artist.

"Women are still underrepresented in technology and we need to work together to bring awareness to society."

Co-chair

Fortunate Twala

Life Coach | Brand Ambassador | Key Note Speaker | Pageant Judge | Social Entrepreneur | 2019 Ms. Common Wealth South Africa | 2020 Top 50 South Africa.

"Most girls and women have less access to technology and we need to work towards solving that first to break the bias."

Speaker

Hiba S Sharief

CxO & & Startup Advisor | Global Thought Leader | Intersection of Innovation & Humanity | Investor | Board Membe, Founder of Elevoro, Silicon Valley’s “40 under40” in 2017 by SVBJ, Sudan’s Women in Africa Ambassador.

"In Africa, young leaders don't necessarily have awareness of how technology can break the gender bias and we need to hold more forums like these."

Speaker

Temitope Adeniyi

Founder STEM Zone | Data Scientist | Ph.D. Candidate, Condensed Matter Physics | Advocate Women-in-STEM | Product Manager

"Technology has brought a lot of Enlightenment and awareness about gender bias."

Speaker

Jumoke Dada

Founder, Taeillo | Nasdaq Milestone Maker | Google Pitch-Drive Asia | Harambean | Pritzker Fellow | 100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria List — #LLA100Women2021| HerNetwork Woman of the Year Entrepreneurship 2021

"We need to stop seeing ourselves as male or female, we need to start looking at ourselves as humans.

Speaker

Anie Akpe

Founder: IBOM LLC | Innov8tiv & African Women In Tech (AWIT)

Speaker

Farida Bedwei

Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer of Logiciel (Ghana) Ltd | CNN African Voices | Feb 2015. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader | Most powerful woman (financial sector) | Disability Rights Advocate | Author

"We are afraid of failure and rejection and that's why we don't try. All we need is to stand up and move on move on."

Speaker

Sophia Bekele

2021 Silicon Valley 'Women of Influence' & CEO Today Award | Bloomberg's Top2 ICT Women Africa| NewAfrican 50 African Trailblazers | Pioneer Internet Gov | Visionary | Thought Leader |Global Entrepreneur | Philanthropist

"#BreakingTheBias campaign solicits us to imagine a world that’s free of stereotypes and discrimination."