00:00Ever since 23-year-old Njinda Salome decided to force her way into the tech industry,
00:06she walks into this office every morning for internship in full-stack web development.
00:12Salome didn't start out as a coder.
00:16When she joined the University of Boya four years ago, she was studying banking and finance.
00:22But with few job prospects, she switched parts.
00:26Today, she recalls her past professional dilemma.
00:29I was seeing nothing ahead.
00:31My internship I did with banking and finance, before going on the internship, no bank allowed us in.
00:38Rejected but not discouraged, Salome decided to invest her savings into a programming course.
00:46At that time, I had just 150, 150k and the few was 350.
00:51Despite limited funding, Salome managed to complete her course.
00:55She drew inspiration from other female figures who had also been in her situation before.
01:00Where I was going to learn, which is Data Girl Technologies, I already conducted some background interview about the CEO of that place.
01:10And I realized that she, too, did accounting.
01:13So I decided now to do it because I had some figure in front of me that has left from my same path and has been able to strive.
01:23Women make up just 18% of Cameroon's tech workforce.
01:28Kindness, who has worked with Salome for six months, links this imbalance to fear of failure.
01:34They will always feel like, oh, programming, I may not be able to learn the language.
01:38Even if I want to learn the language, which language will I learn?
01:41Salome's ambition was not the barrier, but her family's opposition was.
01:48We decided not to sponsor.
01:50She was doing everything on her own.
01:52The auntie two will usually support me in paying her fees.
01:57She doesn't want to respect us.
01:59Let her go ahead and do what she wants.
02:02After two years of determination and self-reliance, Salome has won her parents' support.
02:08I finally come to a conclusion that I would have been very disappointed if she, too, has followed our instruction and refused to follow her dream.
02:18In Cameroon, only 3% of women in IT hold executive positions.
02:23Startups like Data Goal Technologies are helping women break into the male-dominated industry through web development boot camps.
02:34Frida Iposi co-founded the education startup in 2019.
02:39URUX is the core of design.
02:42She has been training the next generation of women tech workers ever since.
02:47We initially started with just, you know, encouraging young women to learn how to build basic websites.
02:52Realizing that there's a huge gap in the ecosystem.
02:55Women don't feel interested.
02:57We decided to come up with the tag that says we are fostering the next generation of young or female tech talents across Africa.
03:04The center has trained more than 3,000 girls, including Salome, who enrolled in 2022.
03:12She often stops by to give back.
03:15This place is like family to me and as a form of appreciation.
03:19I come here from time to time to spend some time with them and also to motivate the girls that have taken a bold step like me.
03:26Tech jobs can be hard for women to find.
03:29But Salome is confident she can achieve her dreams in a male-dominated field.
Comments