Zandile Mkwanazi Hacks the Gender Divide in Tech

Zandile Mkwanazi may have established her non-profit, GirlCode, somewhat by chance, but it was her innate drive to see more women in software development positions that helped the initiative to flourish. With Mkwanazi and her team of equally passionate tech-forward women at the helm, GirlCode, an NGO that hosts hackathons has grown from a humble all-girls hackathon in 2014 with only 20 women in attendance, to empowering over 80,000 girls with skills in coding, programming, and digital literacy a decade later.

“It’s important that we never lose the essence of GirlCode, which is not just to train young girls to code but to create real economic opportunities and change lives,” says Mkwanazi. As a parent to both a daughter and a son, the non-profit CEO says it’s a constant struggle to unlearn the unwritten rules created by culture and society throughout history, that prevent girl children from accessing the same opportunities as boys.

Diversity and female representation in the technology sector are priorities at present

The South African ICT industry is sorely lacking., and according to Women in Tech ZA, out of 236,000 ICT (tech) roles that were available in 2023, women occupy only 56,000 of them. Mkwanazi mentions the lack of career guidance when it comes to encouraging more girls to pursue ICT-related fields. She loved maths in school and excelled at it but had no idea what she wanted to study or do.

A guidance counsellor encouraged her down the path of Actuarial Science, and through a twist of fate, Mkwanazi ‘fell’ into her calling in software development. “There was an internship available for Computer Science students. Although I wasn’t studying the subject, they were offering a stipend, and as young people, when there’s a chance to make a bit of extra cash,” she laughs, “we’re going to make that cash I wanted that stipend.”

Impressing the interviewers, she was accepted for the internship and went on to develop software for a government database to streamline the data collection process for mortuary records in South Africa.

A different calibre of candidates

In her first job working as a Business Analyst, Mkwanazi looked around and realised, that while she loved her co-workers and the work environment, there were not many female developers at that time. “I asked the MD in a kind of joking way one day, ‘Why are you not employing women? What do you have against women?’,” she says. “He said it wasn’t that he’s not trying to hire women, he just wasn’t receiving CVs from that many women, and the ones he did receive weren’t of a high calibre.”

This made sense to her, Mkwanazi recalls, as girls, especially black girls, had different expectations imposed on them since birth. “In varsity, you learn the theory element and you’re expected to go home and practice. But when a girl gets home, she needs to cook, clean, and help in the household.

A boy in the same class gets home, goes straight to his room, opens his laptop, and starts practicing his coding. It just produces a different calibre of candidates.” To recruit more skilled interns into the company, Mkwanazi was given the green light to host a hackathon for young graduates, sparking the start of the GirlCode programme.

GirlCode’s success

South Africa’s leading fibre network operator, Vuma, came on board as a partner in 2019, backing GirlCode Career Days to encourage more young girls at the primary school level to take an interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills. Through the career days, girls get a sense of the different tech careers available to them and are inspired to pursue them.

This partnership emphasises the importance of collaboration for driving social impact. Vuma is well-positioned to provide infrastructural support to the initiative, through its Vuma Fibre to Schools programme. The initiative, which has connected over 780 registered schools in the regions where it operates to free 1Gbps fibre broadband internet, will see some of its connected schools hosting these career days starting from August 2024.

Previously, they launched career days in three Vuma-connected schools in the Soweto and Eldorado Park communities. The goal is to equip young learners with in-demand digital skills, promoting inclusivity in the tech sector.

According to Taylor Kwong, Head of Marketing at Vuma, the demand for tech skills is rapidly increasing across various industries making coding education crucial for preparing girls for future job markets, enhancing their employability, and bridging the gender gap in the tech industry.

“We can’t hope to have more women in tech roles without setting the right foundations and giving girls the information they need to make the right decisions that will lead them down the tech path,” she says.

“We must applaud and support Zandile and women like her who are doing the most to change the narrative of what girls can do and create real, meaningful opportunities that promote equality for women in our country, both in the sector and those aspiring to join it.”

In addition to annual GirlCode Hackathons and career days, the GirlCoder Club teaches coding to girls from Grade 2 up to Grade 11 in schools across the country. To assist young women who may not have the necessary skills needed to find lucrative job opportunities, GirlCode has also pioneered a 12-month skills development programme for unemployed women, which includes job placements by the end of the programme.

Mkwanazi aims to expand her vision of social upliftment in the tech industry through social entrepreneurship and self-funding the GirlCode Hackathons and the GirlCoder Club.

For more information on GirlCode, visit www.girlcode.co.za.