Zandile Mkwanazi may have established her non-profit GirlCode 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, which hosts hackathons, has grown from a humble all-girl initiative with 20 women in 2014 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 core essence of GirlCode, which is not just to train young girls to code but to create real economic opportunities and change lives,” says Mkwanazi, CEO of GirlCode. She says unlearning the unwritten rules created by culture and society throughout history is a constant struggle, which prevents girls from accessing the same opportunities as boys.
Diversity and female representation in the technology sector are priorities today – areas where the South African ICT industry is sorely lacking. According to Women in Tech ZA, of 236 000 ICT roles available in 2023, women occupied 56 000.
“I loved maths in school and excelled at it but had no idea what I wanted to study or do,” says Mkwanazi. A guidance counsellor encouraged her to consider actuarial science but she found 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. I wanted that stipend!”
She impressed the interviewers, was accepted for the internship and went on to develop software for a government database – streamlining the data collection process for mortuary records in South Africa.
A different calibre of candidates
In her first job as a business analyst, Mkwanazi realised, although she loved her co-workers and the work environment, there were few female developers at the time. She jokingly asked her MD one day: “Why are you not employing women? What do you have against women?” He said it wasn’t intentional; he wasn’t receiving CVs from many women and those he received weren’t of a high calibre.
“This made sense as female candidates, especially black girls, have different expectations imposed on them at birth,” says Mkwanazi. “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 practising his coding. It just produces a different calibre of candidates.”
With the goal of recruiting 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 girls in primary school to consider learning STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills. The career days introduce girls to different tech careers and inspire them to enter the field.
The partnership with Vuma, well-positioned to provide infrastructural support to the initiative through its fibre-to-schools programme, emphasises the importance of collaboration in driving social impact. Vuma’s programme has connected over 780 registered schools in the regions where it operates to free 1 Gbps fibre broadband internet. Already hosting career days at three Vuma-connected schools in Soweto and Eldorado Park, the initiative is set to expand to other connected schools from this month.
The goal is to equip learners with in-demand digital skills and thus promote inclusivity in the tech sector.
According to Taylor Kwong, head of marketing at Vuma, as demand for tech skills is rapidly increasing across various industries, coding education is crucial to prepare girls for future job markets, enhance their employability and bridge 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,” says Kwong. “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 within 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 grades 2 to 11 in schools across the country. GirlCode has also pioneered a 12-month skills development programme for unemployed women, which includes job placements.
Mkwanazi plans to expand her vision to uplift the tech industry through social entrepreneurship and self-funding the GirlCode hackathons and the GirlCoder Club.
