By Imaan Moosa
Edited by Yumna Bodiat
Mbali speaks to us about her organisation Pink Codrs and their empowerment of women in STEM.
Mbali Hlongwane at a workshop hosted by Kaizer Chiefs in Cape Town to roundoff Women's Month, August 2019. Photo: Kaizer Chiefs
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect refers to a small change that can cause massive, unpredictable consequences. An insect flaps its wings in one location and, weeks later, causes a tornado somewhere else.
The language of code is guarded by the gatekeepers of data scientists and systems developers, who protect the sanctity of world order. These gatekeepers are similar to the flapping wings of insects in chaos theory. Coders flap their wings and one small change can allow us entry into and access of a new world of information and communication technology.
Pink Codrs is an organisation focused on flapping its wings to challenge the shortage of women software developers in ICT (Information and Communication Technology), space previously male-dominated.
They build networks of women software developers across Africa who will educate and empower poor young girls and create sustainable change in the ICT industry. At the helm of the hive is queen bee Mbali Hlongwane.
Durban-born Hlongwane migrated to Johannesburg four years ago. She is a systems developer who founded Pink Codrs based on her experiences as a woman in the world of science.
She partook in the IBM Innovate Durban 2015 Hackathon challenge where she and her team came third place. She says at the time she was the only woman in a team of five men.
I looked around the room and there was obviously a very huge gap within the space. The experience helped me so much. I started noticing companies who were looking for women and wondering, ‘Where are they?’ There’s women on the other end going, ‘Well the industry is not opening up to us and we don’t feel we fit in the space.’
Hlongwane explains coding as “everything from our Uber Eats to our laptops. It is basically a programming language that is used to develop an app or a website”.
She says being able to code is step one. “Being able to develop something from scratch and tell your machine what you wanted it to do, giving it syntaxes and numbers is what excites a lot of people.”
Step two is deciding which branch of coding is for you.
You can become a data scientist or a game developer. It depends on what excites you. You can become a coder and say, ‘I don’t want to sit in a big company doing boring lines of code. I actually want to do game.’
Her determination to create change had her working on an ICT program for women coders. Pink Codrs aims to center its programs on ensuring women feel welcome in the industry and give them the tools to tackle industry challenges.
Hlongwane joined the Black IT Forum (BIF) when she was living in Durban. BIF is an NGO that upskills women and men in ICT. Being a part of BIF helped expose her to the field of STEM and understand the challenges existent in space.
The existence of BIF and platforms which cater to helping young graduates grow into a space that seems very daunting upon leaving institutions of higher learning propelled Hlongwane to think of a way she could help women like herself.
A lot of women spend their time stuck in corporate and in the process [they do] not have a life. Women tackle issues on their own as they go. We understand that to keep helping women grow, we need to have a space for women to feel safe. We have structured our programs so that we are able to get someone from an introduction to [the job she is gunning for]. We take women not from zero to hero but from zero to five. We want women to look beyond what they are taught to where the industry is going.
Hlongwane took 20 women from the Pink Codrs data science program to meet with local football club Kaizer Chiefs.
Mbali Hlongwane at the Soweto Derby, Kaizer Chiefs vs Oralndo Pirates F.C., in October 2019 to challenge the shortage of women software developers in South Africa. Pictured Mbali Hlongwane with Kaizer Chiefs' women team, including marketing manager Jessica Moaung. Photos: Kaizer Chiefs
The partnership between Pink Codrs and Kaizer Chiefs began as a think-tank to find solutions to help women grow. The partnership took their ideas to three provinces. The pilot initiative was the Soweto Derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Pirates F.C.
The aim was to give the women who had been through Pink Codrs the chance to take the experience back when they re-entered the workplace.
You can study for six years but if you don’t have experience it backfires. We wanted to ensure that our ladies were ready.
The Soweto Derby taught the women about sports science, a sub-field that had seldom seen women. The 20 women were divided into groups focusing on events and ticket sales and the other on sports analysis. Five ladies were working with the live football analysis.
“Our women learned how a game for us becomes numbers for them. Sports science is an industry that has not been tapped into by women that much. Our focus was pushing our ladies into this field to give them practical experience to look at problems and learn how to solve them,” Hlongwane says.
Mbali Hlongwane speaks at the 8th Africa Students and Youth Summit where students from across Africa and members of the African Union convened in Rabat, Morocco to elevate conversations about youth, education, women’s issues, entrepreneurship and technology. Photo: Snake Nation, Medium
The experience taught her that more needs to be done in South Africa to develop the youth to become pioneers and become guardians and queen bees of their own industries.
We have seen a lot of developments by the US and so forth. The sporting industry is vast and it is largely driven by technology. I think in Africa we are always a step behind. She strong advocates for making IT a compulsory course in South African schools allow young girls to 'go that extra mile.'
“I had CAT at school and that was mainly teaching [us] Microsoft Word, how to switch on a computer and how to type. If I left high school only knowing how to type and how to switch on a computer and learn computer science in university, it means there is really a big gap,” she says.
She says by making IT compulsory at an introductory level young women will be at an advantage; more women will be inculcated into space and South African youth will be computer literate.
A snippet of our interview with Mbali Hlongwane posted on the To EmpowHER IGTV page.
And so, women who strive to flap their wings a little harder are able to create big change for other young girls and women elsewhere. Small actions create big change, as Hlongwane says:
“I’ve heard stories from my colleagues of six-year-olds learning how to code and that blows my mind because in South Africa at six years old you’re colouring in a colouring book. We need to introduce data science at a young age. Even if kids are playing games, like Dragon Drop, they are seeing lines of code on the corner of the screen.
“If we make it a norm, the more our kids will be exposed to and learn about it. Now is an important [time] to be able to have access to technology and knowledge about IT, because if I am a child who is not tech-savvy and my parents are not tech-savvy how can I do online learning? This whole generation is going through a digital transformation. Nothing will ever be the same. [We need to make] it exciting for young kids.”
More on Mbali Hlongwane:
Mbali’s personal goal is to drive the economic and technological development of Africa through solutions-based programs that promote technology, knowledge sharing, social development and sustainability.
She is also part of the Africa Technology Foundation (ATF) which is based in Silicon Valley and works to create a new Africa of digital entrepreneurship and economic development. Her awards and accolades include:
IBM Innovate Durban 2015 Hackathon, 3rd place Winners
Woman in ICT Award 2015 – Black IT Forum and Municipality
IStudent Academy Gold Graduate
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