Another day, another lady, and today’s lady is Christiana Isu, a graduate of Management of Technology from École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs en Électrotechnique et Électronique, Paris. She has worked on big data, data quality, and business intelligence.
innov8tiv gives you yet another preview of the women in tech who will be speaking at the #AWITNigeria19 conference. So we had another sit down with Isu and here is how it went down:
How important is technology to the work you do?
I use technology every day to store, process and send information.
Data Science has become relevant in almost every field today. What got you interested in this field?
In the past decade, data generated by people all over the world have increased rapidly in volume, variety, and velocity. So, businesses can now harness actionable intelligence to gain competitive advantage, achieve better customer relations and increase profit.
In 2013, Gartner’s hype cycle for emerging technologies placed “big data” at the peak of inflated expectations. Despite this hype, organizations in Africa are still to realize the added value of big data. Therefore, I became interested in proffering data science as a service to organizations around my continent.
As an African woman in tech, what is the most significant challenge you have faced professionally?
The most significant challenge I have faced professionally has been a lack of funds. Thankfully with the help of “massive open online courses” I have been able to acquire technical skills.
If you could change one thing about the technology field in Africa, what would it be?
I will change the way technology is taught from the primary schools and give the average African child earlier access to technology and professional mentorship. In Africa, we have great potential to create and advance technology. With the right skills, our countries can witness increased participation in the “global value chains” and subsequently move up the value chains to participate in higher value-added activities.
It is believed that we are being launched into the third industrial revolution, and this digitization will consequently change the politics of jobs. How do you think women in Africa can take advantage of this to advance and stay relevant?
For women in Africa to remain relevant through the digital revolution, we need to believe in our ability as women to achieve results and keep an open mind to the digital revolution. We can serve as role models to the younger generation of women by showing them through our discoveries and work that it is possible to succeed in technology as an African woman.
