News from Angola – It is urgent to develop more Angolan women within the world of technology. It was with this objective in mind that Elisa Capololo promoted, in 2019, the Women Techmakers Luanda project.
By: Angola News
The 25-year-old computer engineer’s intense work towards the integration of women in a critical area for the country’s future earned her the Tigra Nova Garra Award 2nd edition, in the Science & Technology & Digital World category.
Half a year after the night she won the 2nd edition of the Tigra Nova Garra Prize, in the Science & Technology & Digital World category, Elisa Capololo turned her life around. Visibly happy, she says via video call: “I was selected for an African-wide program, which trains 53 people from 10 countries in entrepreneurship and software creation. I’ve been here since August and I’m the only Angolan!”
Enthusiastic, she says that “this inspiring and challenging program” provides tools to “create technological solutions to face the challenges of our countries”. “It is we, Africans, who best know our reality and how our societies behave, and therefore we have the responsibility to find answers to our problems”, she argues. “This is my next focus,” she stresses.
The new stage of the IT engineer in Ghana will last a year, but will not interrupt the work at the head of Women Techmakers Luanda, a project that earned her recognition in this year’s edition of the Tigra Nova Garra Awards. Elisa Capololo’s plans with the group that, between 2019 and this year, helped train 20 women in technology, are many and include the opening, “soon”, of a new registration period.
Also this year, “probably during this month of November”, Women Techmakers Luanda will organize DevFest, an event that had its first edition in 2018 and that “brings together people from the technology industry, such as developers, designers and programmers, who share here knowledge”, describes Elisa Capololo. The festival should be “in person and online, to include the many Angolan developers who work outside the country, and who are a great motivation for all of us”.
Professional guidance needed
Despite being only 25 years old, Elisa Capololo has a solid track record in promoting technology, an area in which, “in many specialized events, she was the only woman to participate”. The opportunity to “do something” arose in 2018. “At that time, I belonged to the Google Developers Group in Angola. When I learned that Google had the global Women Techmakers initiative, precisely to reduce this gender imbalance in the technology area, I sent the project to create the Luanda chapter. A few months later, in 2019, they approved the proposal and our group was born.”
As a general goal, Women Techmakers “arose to boost and develop women within the world of technology”, he summarizes. But the strategy to get there “was not linear”. “I am often asked why there are not more women in this field. But the truth is that, despite cultural prejudices that say computers are not for girls, we do have women studying IT and Computer Science at Angolan universities”, she reveals. “The big problem”, she points out, “is the lack of professional guidance”. “We learn a lot of things at college, but at no point are we shown all the possibilities that exist in the universe of technology, which is vast. When we finish the courses, we think we only have two options: programming or computer networking. This ends up leading many people, women and men, to abandon the area after university.”
Once the flaw was located, Women Techmakers set up their own operating system. “From the beginning, we ask the women in the group which technology sector they would like to work in, such as marketing or design, for example, and we give them the specific training necessary”, comments the young woman. According to the systems engineer, “this work scheme not only motivates them not to abandon the path of technology, but also gives the opportunity to women who are still studying to do internships in the area they chose and to be highly specialized when they finish university and launch themselves into the job market.”
The astonishment at the Tigra Nova Garra Awards
The relevance of this work by Elisa Capololo in Women Techmakers projected her among the public and the jury as winner of the Science & Technology & Digital World category of the Tigra Nova Garra 2022 Awards. The look of surprise during the “coronation speech”, still today It makes him “want to laugh”, he says, amused. “She was really in disbelief, because she was running alongside people who I respect a lot and who, despite being young, have an impressive trajectory”, she confesses.
Once the surprise was over, he dedicated himself to “managing the enormous visibility that the Awards gave to the Women Techmakers project”. “The week we won (I say, because it was an award for the whole group), our social networks really ‘boomed’. We received many, many messages from women asking how they could join the project and even from people who already work in technology offering to share their knowledge. It was fantastic!”.
Half of the 1 million kwanza prize was invested “in training and activities for Women Techmakers and in the material needed to increase their impact”; the other half is “still in storage” waiting for new projects. Which could even involve collaboration with the nominees in her area at the Tigra Nova Garra 2022 Awards. “We talk a lot about how to work together,” she says.
In addition to the monetary value, visibility and intense networking, the awards had a “great symbolic value”, guarantees Elisa Capololo. “The recognition was extremely important for the entire group, because it demonstrated that there are people and brands like Tigra who are empathetic to our cause, who are attentive to what we do and that what we do matters.”