WI Tech Month Presents Women in Tech Week: Amanda Obidike

This “Women in Tech Week” feature is dedicated to Amanda Obidike, with a powerful story on how she transition to STEM after being under-employed. 

Amanda’s professional goal as an African woman who was under-employed and depressed in 2015 is Building an “Africa By Us, For Us” ecosystem that prepares diverse young talents with future-focused options in STEM lucrative pathways to become more experienced for Africa’s workforce. Being under-employed made her realize that 83.5% of graduates do not have the required technical skills for lucrative and meaningful jobs available in Nigeria. 

Her goal addresses the leaky unemployment pipeline, the under-representation of young women and girls in STEM and the integration of STEM education in classrooms across Sub-Saharan Africa. 

In 2018, She founded STEMi Makers Africa where we boost employment, innovation, inclusion and aim to empower a talent base of 2,000,000 young Africans with emerging technologies, and real-world problem-solving skills to excel in STEM pathways, shape the Future of Work and contribute to the development of our changing workforce by 2030.

Today, they have maintained one of the greatest strategies in helping 78+ communities in 19 African countries and 65,000+ young people develop job skills, improve educational outcomes, provide opportunities to succeed and we are planning ahead not to leave the younger generation feeling displaced and inheriting a more fragmented world than we live in today.

Amanda also designed a first-to-market, teacher-centred learning management platform using the “Africa By Us, For Us” approach with little or no internet required for Educators to host virtual lab sessions, assign project-based tasks and research activities for students to build, create and pursue careers in STEM and Innovation. Through this innovation, 500+ Educators, 4,004 students are onboard the platform and we became a Falling Walls Berlin Engage Finalist for Breakthrough of the Year in the Digital Education category, 2020.

Amanda – Thank you for leading the way as a Women in Tech and serving as a prime example for future leaders. 

Amanda Obidike – https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandaobidikechirpy/