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AFCHIX mentors and inspires girls to consider careers in Computer Science and IT through visits to schools, technical workshops, events aimed at women in tech, and sponsoring our members to take part in local and international tech conferences.
We target upper primary and high school girls between the age of 9 to 18, young women studying in the ICT field, young women at the start of their careers in the sector, and experienced women in tech who want to grow into leadership positions.
AFCHIX’s reason for existence and the objectives of our work can be summarised in three words shown on our logo. We want to create Inspiration, Connection and Community.
AFCHIX wants to inspire more women and girls in Africa to learn how to use technology, pursue careers in STEM, and gain confidence in their own immense potential. We work to inspire change by advocating to close the gender digital divide that continues to keep women from accessing the internet or truly benefitting from connectivity.
AFCHIX exists to facilitate connection.
We create platforms and opportunities for African women in tech to connect with each other. We connect girls and women to the resources they need to gain skills and knowledge about technology to improve their lives. We support communities to connect themselves to the internet through creating community networks.
AFCHIX uses the connections we establish to create more than a network of women. We want to create a community of women in tech that supports and uplifts not only each other – but also those women who are still unconnected.
AFCHIX was founded by African women and for African women. The organisation that would become AFCHIX was born in 2004, when Dorcas Muthoni and Ana Badimo founded a regional chapter of world-wide group, LinuxChix. Through LinuxChix Africa, they hoped to help build the critical mass of Linux skills among African women and to advocate the use of open-source software to help tackle development challenges in African communities.
Since then, AFCHIX has evolved into an independent African organisation and its activities have reached women in 25 countries on the continent. This includes over 7000 high school girls in Kenya and Uganda who have benefitted from our mentorship and career guidance programmes.
An equitable digital world for everyone.
To create an exemplary organisation and network of African Women in Computing with a desire to inclusively provide: opportunities, mentorship, capacity building and inspire young generations through role modelling.
Everyone involved.
By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.
Participation rate of youth and adults in formal and non-formal education and training in the previous 12 months, by sex
Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.
Proportion of women in managerial positions
By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age and persons with disabilities
We create opportunities for
everyone to thrive and inspire others.
Selfless commitment to our community.
We embrace togetherness and mentorship.
We are true to ourselves and others.
Encourage our community to boost their own prosperity.
Being free from social stereotypes and making choices without losing ourselves.
Encourage creativity driven by our diversity.
The AFCHIX Board
The AFCHIX International Advisory Panel
Our mission is to create an exemplary organisation and network of African women in tech with a desire to inclusively provide: opportunities, mentorship, and capacity building while inspiring younger generations.
E: admin@afchix.org
T: +254 703 041 000
A: 10th Floor | KOFISI Square | Riverside Drive, Nairobi, Kenya
Copyright © 2024 AFCHIX | All Rights Reserved
AFCHIX installs 20 computers, a projector and internet in Uganda Society for the Deaf Vocational Training Centre, Namirembe. As a result, over 300 deaf students learn and practice basic ICT skills every year.
AFCHIX hosts its first AFCHIX TechWomen Summit in Nairobi Kenya, creating the first event aimed at women in technology to take place alongside the well-known annual Africa Internet Summit (AIS).
AFCHIX wins a grant from AFRINIC to create videos documenting the stories of successful African women in ICT to inspire young African girls to consider careers in the sector.
AFCHIX is one of the winners of USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge This support enables us to pilot the creation of community networks led by women in four communities in Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, and Morocco.
AFCHIX is chosen as one of the winners in the third round of the WomenConnect Challenge and begins work to upscale the four community networks created in 2018.
Dorcas Muthoni is one of the co-founders of AFCHIX. She is the founder and CEO of OpenWorld, a software company she founded when she was 24 years old and which has grown to become a leading e-Government and business software services firm in East Africa. Dorcas has been an Internet Society (ISOC) Fellow to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and World Bank infoDev Global Forum. She is also an Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology’s Change Agent award winner and was chosen as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Nairobi.
Dr Houda Chakiri is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Al Akhawayn University Ifrane, Morocco, as well as the founder and former CEO of Enhanced Technologies, a Moroccan IT company that specialised in developing e-Government solutions. Houda has received several accolades as an entrepreneur, including the IEEE CIST Young ICT Entrepreneur Award in 2014. She holds a PhD in Computer and Information Sciences from Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University and an MSc in Computer Networks from Al Akhawayn University. Houda is a Project Management Institute Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI). She is currently the IEEE Women in Engineering Morocco Affinity group chair.
Nodumo Dhlamini is the Director of ICT Services, Communications and Knowledge Management at the Association of African Universities Secretariat in Ghana. Originally from Zimbabwe, she previously worked as a Systems Engineer at Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe and also headed their ICT Department. Nodumo also served as Programme Manager (ICT) for RUFORUM, a network of agricultural universities, to promote their integration of ICT for research, collaboration and education. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics and Computer Science) from the University of Swaziland and a Master’s in Business Administration from Africa University.
Steve Song is a research associate and consultant with the Network Startup Resource Center where he works to expand the use of wireless technologies through shared spectrum strategies and to enable greater Internet access throughout Africa and other emerging markets. He is also a half-time fellow for 2019 with the Mozilla Foundation. His strong technical knowledge combined with an exceptional ability to communicate technical concepts to non-expert audiences have made his blog (manypossibilities.net) a popular destination for anyone interested in African telecommunications and Internet issues.
Since 2009, Steve has been actively maintaining public maps of undersea and terrestrial fibre optic infrastructure in Africa at afterfibre.nsrc.org. Steve is also the founder of Village Telco, a social enterprise that manufactures low-cost WiFi mesh VoIP technologies to deliver affordable voice and Internet service in under-serviced areas. Previously, Steve worked at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), where he led the organization’s ICT4D program in Africa, funding research into the transformational potential of ICTs.
Since July 2017 Erik Huizer is the CEO for GÉANT, Europe’s leading collaboration on e-infrastructure and services for research and education. Before that he was CTO at SURFnet, the Dutch national academic and research network.
He serves on the non-executive board of the Dutch public broadcaster. He is a member of various advisory committees and held many non-executive board positions with organisations related to Internet, technology, media, research and education.
From 2008 – 2012 Erik Huizer was Managing Director (Algemeen Directeur) for the Information Sciences and Space technology division at TNO (The Netherlands organization for applied scientific research).
From 1988 – 2000 Erik also worked at SURFnet as a project and (later) program manager. He chaired various RARE (later Terena) WGs. He was a member of the Terena technical committee. From 2000 – 2015 he was a part time Professor Internet Applications. Most recently at Utrecht University and before that at the faculty of computer science of the University Twente. He remains a research associate at Utrecht University.
For over 30 years he has been involved in education and research networking, Internet standardization and Internet governance. In the nineties he was Area Director for Applications of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and a member of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). From 1995 till 1999 member of the Internet Architecture Board. Responsible for restructuring of the Internet standards process (IETF). From 1999 till 2001 Chair of the Internet Research task force. From 2001 onwards, he had various roles in ICANN and IGF.
Erik chaired the Dutch IPv6 Taskforce from 2002-2017. The taskforce created awareness, build technical capacity and helped ISPs, SMEs and the government to introduce IPv6 in the Netherlands.
For his contributions to the Internet he has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2015 he was honored with the title of Dutch ICT personality of the year. He has been teaching at various developing countries workshops on Internet policy and technology. He is a TEDx speaker.
GÉANT
GÉANT is the organization that serves the European NRENs and, through them, their constituencies: institutions for Research and Education. GÉANT with its community develops, innovates and operates a pan-European network for scientific excellence, research and education. Through its integrated catalogue of connectivity, collaboration and identity services, GÉANT provides users with highly reliable, unconstrained access to computing, analysis, storage, applications and other resources, to ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of research.
Through interconnections with its 38 National Research and Education Network (NREN) partners, the GÉANT network is the largest and most advanced R&E network in the world, connecting over 50 million users at 10,000 institutions across Europe and supporting all scientific disciplines. The backbone network operates at speeds of up to 1 Tbps and reaches over 100 national networks worldwide.
Since its establishment over 20 years ago, the GÉANT network has developed progressively to ensure that European researchers lead international and global collaboration. Over 5 petabytes of data is transferred via the GÉANT IP backbone every day. More than just an infrastructure for e-science, it stands as a positive example of European integration and collaboration.
GÉANT develops, delivers and promotes advanced networks and associated e-infrastructure services. GEANT supports open innovation, collaboration and knowledge-sharing amongst its members, partners and the wider research and education networking community.
www.geant.org
Karen Rose is an internationally recognized expert in Internet policy, technology and development and has been working to make the Internet better for over 25 years. She is currently a partner Interisle Consulting Group, an independent consultancy specializing in matters related to Internet and telecommunications networks, including their design, use, governance and growth. Previously, Karen was a senior executive at the Internet Society (ISOC) and led the organization’s work to expand Internet access, infrastructure, and related policy and technical capacities around the world. While there, she and colleague Michuki Mwangi founded the African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), now one of the most important Internet events in Africa.
Between 1996 to 2002, Karen served at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), working on various aspects of global Internet and digital infrastructure policy. Among her accomplishments, she was co-author of the U.S. policy that globalized management of the Internet Domain Name System and fostered creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Karen previously served on the board of Netnod, one of Europe’s most recognized Internet exchange point operators and as vice chair of the stakeholder advisory committee for the .us domain. She has also authored numerous studies and papers on Internet development, Internet policy, and new digital technologies.
Anne-Rachel Inné is an Internet and digital transformation veteran and established community giver. She just retired from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) where she was serving as Regional Director for Africa, liaison to the African Union and UNECA.
Prior to joining ITU, she was the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and the primary link to Governments of US, Canada, and more than 25 Caribbean and North Atlantic economies that constitute ARIN’s region and the focal point for International IGOs, IOs and their work.
Immediately prior to working for ARIN, Anne-Rachel was the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s Vice President Government Engagement in Geneva, Switzerland, and worked for ICANN for 12 years in different policy and higher management positions.
She also worked as the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the Africa Regional Registry, AFRINIC, taking care of the total registry operations, and governments’ engagement in the Registry’s public policies process.
Anne-Rachel worked at the IICD in The Hague, Netherlands (1998-2001) as several African, Caribbean and South American countries’ programme manager directing multi sector social development projects that were early adopters of ICT/Internet. She produced and publicized Learning by Doing: Lessons emerging from the ICT
Stories Projects for the benefits of the projects and the wider community.
She was a member of the Bureau of the African Group at the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS), as a representative of the African private sector and a member of the Gender Coalition during WSIS with which she helped write Creating Your Own National Gender Programme – A Practical Guide
Anne-Rachel was an entrepreneur and consultant in the ICT4D for several years in developing economies and worked with African Union and UNECA on the African Information Society Initiative and subsequent NICI plans.
She was featured as ICT Expert in the ILO/IOM book for the AUC: African Women at the Service of the Union and a recipient of several awards for her demonstrated immense commitment and continued engagement with African communities.
She is the Chair or member of the Board of several NGOs that work in Digital Skills, Diplomacy in the digital age, African languages and ICTs and is the initiator/participant to several other initiatives around education and Internet/ICTs for Africa, by Africans.
As an award-winning researcher in AI, Kaoutar works to encourage and support other women to pursue careers in STEM.
Dr. Kaoutar El Maghraoui is a principal research scientist at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Centre in New York. Her work focuses on systems and artificial intelligence. She leads the End-Use experimental AI testbed of the IBM Research AI Hardware Center, a global research hub focusing on enabling next-generation accelerators and systems for AI workloads.
Originally from Morocco, Kaoutar completed a master’s degree in Computer Networks at Al Akhawayn University, where she was a lecturer in Computer Science. She now holds a PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States. She has published several research articles and received several awards. This includes the Robert McNaughton Award for best thesis in computer science, IBM’s Eminence and Excellence award for leadership in increasing Women’s presence in science and technology. More recently, she received theI received the IEEE TCSVC Women in Service Computing Awarda and was recognised as IBM Honoree for 2021.
Kauotor is the co-chair of the Arab Women in Computing Organisation, (ArabWIC) Anita Borg Institute Systers’ community and co-chair of IBM Research Watson Women’s Network. She is also active member of the leadership team of the Grace Hopper Conference (GHC)
“My advice to young women joining our field is: just be yourself and be confident, and you can really do amazing things. The field of computing and STEM is too important to be left to men alone. You can see that computing and software and technology are touching every aspect of our lives, so we have to be part of this revolution that is changing our lives for generations to come.”
Dr. Revi Sterling has worked to advance digital inclusion in both domestic and international contexts for over 25 years. She is the Technical Director for the Women in the Digital Ecosystem Fund (WiDEF), a White House initiative to close the gender and technology gap. She previously developed and ran the USAID WomenConnect Challenge and Women and the Web programs. Prior to these positions, Revi founded and directed the first Information and Communications Technology for Development professional master’s program in the United States at the University of Colorado Boulder. Before academia, Revi spent a decade at Microsoft Research, spearheading efforts in gender equity in computer science as well as working as a software engineer and program manager in the Emerging Technologies division. She serves on leading gender and technology boards, has testified before the U.S. Congress about the need for more women in the technical workforce, and consults extensively for foundations, development agencies, and high technology companies on using information and communications technology to empower women and marginalized populations.
Vymala Poligadu-Thuron is a seasoned strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in policy advocacy, diplomacy, and executive management. Her work spans national, regional, and global levels, focusing on advancing gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, and creating sustainable job opportunities for youth.
Vymala serves as the Director at Triple A, where she spearheads advisory and advocacy initiatives that drive impactful projects and foster strategic partnerships. Previously, she was the Deputy Managing Director of the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund, managing a $200 million fund that catalyzed systemic change and significantly enhanced investments in gender-focused businesses.
With a robust background in finance and impact investing, Vymala has played a crucial role in shaping and implementing strategic initiatives that promote socio-economic growth and sustainable development. Her leadership has been instrumental in designing funds aimed at fostering prosperity for young people across MENA and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Vymala’s extensive experience in the Development Finance and Technology sectors demonstrates her ability to drive impactful initiatives. Her work focused on increasing funding for sustainable projects and improving internet access in Africa highlights her commitment to social and economic development. Additionally, her skills in financial analysis, communication, and stakeholder engagement have significantly contributed to enhancing the visibility and effectiveness of the organizations she has worked with.
Passionate about inclusivity and innovation, Vymala advocates for gender diversity and capacity building within the investment landscape. She is recognized as a thought leader in impact investing and frequently speaks at international conferences. Her collaborative efforts with governmental and development organizations align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), driving socio-economic progress across the continent. She has also been instrumental in supporting AFCHIX for the revamping of the Brand, website and communication aspects.
Vymala holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs and a Master’s in Finance from Sorbonne University in Paris. Her commitment to advancing gender equality and empowering women underscores her vision for a just and equitable world for future generations.
Dr Dawit Bekele is the Regional Vice President-Africa of the Internet Society, an organization that works for an open, globally connected and secure Internet for everyone. Prior to joining Internet Society, he worked at Addis Ababa University on teaching and research positions, in computer science. He also started and ran a private company for Internet-related services.
Dawit is an Ethiopian citizen. He received undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, from Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. He also holds a master’s in business leadership from University of South Africa.
Steve Huter is the Director for the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) and a Research Associate at the University of Oregon. Steve has worked with thousands of network engineers, scientists, and Internet technology developers in more than one hundred countries around the world to help build Internet infrastructure and establish international partnerships in support of research and education.
Building on the relationships established over the years, he helps cultivate a community of technical professionals on a global scale to train network engineers who enable continuous progress for expanding the Internet into new areas, with a focus on affordable access. In 2014, Steve was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connector, and in 2018 received the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award.