12 quotes found
"Several factors inspired me to found WAAW Foundation in 2007 while I was completing my Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering at Texas A & M University. At that time, I was the only woman of color in the program and my graduate education experience had been a very lonely one working mostly amongst men. I knew that I wanted to be an engineer and had the ability to be a great one, but I wished there were more women in STEM to support each other."
"I saw the huge impact technology could have in lifting entire communities out of poverty. I could see the rapid technological advances that were in the pipeline. For instance, I saw the advent of Google, PayPal and Amazon and some of my research was around the technologies that powered these huge companies and the impact they had on e-commerce, telecommunications, and the financial industry."
"In Nigeria, we have continued to engage with the community to push against societal norms that tell girls that a STEM education is not feminine. We have worked with government ministries, secondary school teachers, communities and especially parents of girls to educate them on the huge benefits of STEM education for girls. WAAW is looking to partner with Federal Ministries of Education, Science and Technology to re-invent what STEM education should be and retrain our teachers to incorporate hands on, locally available resources to promote innovation in the classrooms."
"Consider the recent research that states that 90% of jobs created in the next 20-30 years will require some sort of skill in STEM. That means that people who have STEM skills will have a huge advantage over those who don’t. Whether they are applying those skills in core technology or in healthcare, finance, agriculture, business, transportation. I think that girls should participate in creating those technologies so we can solve some of the critical issues facing us."
"I have never met a great leader who is not a reader."
"“If we have more space, in a government school or a university to make use of their spaces and their classrooms, we can do much more and accommodate so much more girls.”"
"We need to educate and sensitize people more. Sometimes when we talk about our programme, many people are yet to really understand the importance of educating girls, they say why only girls, why is this different from any other organisation."
"Trust your instincts, if you feel a person, product or approach is not right for your business, trust your instincts even more and do what is right for your business. Be unafraid."
"“I wanted to be that voice, I wanted to go back to my community and inspire more girls to consider tech as a career path.”"
"What we have done is to start to showcase women in tech as cool and successful, [and we have started to] engage girls at a younger age … and show girls that tech is really fun."
"I used to back off from reaching my dreams because I used to think that I was too little, too small, too that. Now I realize that I’m doing others a disservice. The more I reach for my dreams, the more successful I am. The more I share my story, the more I empower other people to reach for their dreams. We should all do that because each of our dreams is valid.”"
"Health is a journey. I would love to see a world where the first place of living healthy is going to Mother Earth and nature to look at what nature has given us to stay healthy.”"