That image, of talent without access, of potential without platform, is what drives everything I build or have ever built – From HireFoster to Zedi.
Fifteen years of working at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and startup growth across Africa will teach you things that no business school captures. One of the most important is this: the gender gap in Africa is no longer just an education gap or an economic gap. It is, increasingly, a digital literacy gap. And if we do not treat closing that gap with the same urgency we once brought to getting girls into classrooms, we will watch a new generation of African women get left behind, not by the old barriers, but by entirely new ones.
I have seen this play out from multiple vantage points. As Social Producer for CNN Africa, I watched who got to shape narratives and who remained subjects of them. As Director of Marketing and Growth at MAX.ng and later as CEO of Zedi Inc, I sat in strategy rooms where data and digital tools determined which voices had weight and which ones were disregarded. As co-founder of TORA Africa, an HR-tech startup focused on recruiting and training Africa’s blue-collar workforce, I saw firsthand how the absence of digital skills locked capable women out of opportunities that were sitting right in front of them.
Each of those experiences deepened the same conviction that I have always had: digital literacy is not a technical skill. It is a power skill. And in Africa today, it is one of the most significant determinants of who gets to participate in the economy and who gets to lead it.
And that is why I built DigiClan.
The focus of DigiClan is a very deliberate and intentional one, as one of the largest communities of digital skills professionals in Africa, DigiClan is very committed to the upskilling and empowering of women and other underrepresented groups in tech.
It isn’t because other people do not deserve digital education, they all do, However the gap is not neutral.
There are structural and unique barriers that constantly hinders women from accessing digital skills and the solutions to these must be equally specific and structural.
Any woman that possesses a good understanding of data-driven marketing will be able to build a business that scales. A woman that understands automation will be able to multiply her output without having to multiply her hours. All of these are not just small things. They are entirely transformational things. for individuals, for families, and for the communities those women lead and serve.
Through Zedi Inc, the marketing technology company I founded, I work every day with startups trying to figure out how to grow in environments that are complex, noisy, and rapidly changing. The ones that grow fastest are almost never the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones with the clearest thinking, teams that understand their data, tell their story well, and use technology as a multiplier rather than a mystery.
That is what digital literacy gives women. Not just access to the economy, agency within it.
The feminist movements that shaped the 20th century fought for women’s right to vote, to own property, to access education. Those fights were not abstract. They were about who gets to participate in the systems that determine how the world works.
The fight today is the same fight in a different arena. The systems that determine how the world works now are digital. The boardrooms are digital. The marketplaces are digital. The communities where influence is built and ideas spread, digital. And if African women are not literate in these systems, not just as users but as builders and leaders and architects, then all the progress of the generations before us sits on a foundation that is cracking.
I am not willing to let that happen. And I do not think you are either.
Digital literacy is the new feminist movement. And Africa’s women are more than ready to lead it.
About the Contributor
Ized Uanikhehi is a marketing technologist, serial entrepreneur, and community builder with over 15 years of experience driving growth for leading organizations across Africa. She is the Founder and CEO of Zedi Inc, a firm focused on helping startups scale through data-driven strategy, automation, and digital transformation. Over the course of her career, she has led marketing and growth strategies for organizations including CNN Africa, MAX.ng, and HAUL247, and co-founded TORA Africa, focused on empowering Africa’s blue-collar workforce. She is also the convener of DigiClan, one of Africa’s largest communities for digital professionals, where she champions digital skills development, gender inclusion, and the advancement of women in technology.
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