From the right: Raliat Oyetunde (moderator), Nkemdilim Uwaje Beghob (panelist), Nathalie Sundelin (Panelist), Sola Babatunde (Panelist)

Digital skills and  the knowledge they bring have been described as the most important tools needed to advance in today’s world and bridge the inequality gap between men and women.

This was the position of Nathalie Sundelin, Co-Founder of Global Wissen Consult, at a panel discussion to mark the year’s International Women’s Day, IWD, celebrations. “We live in an era where new opportunities have been created for all races, genders and nationalities. The digital era is bringing us one step closer to equality, as the tools and knowledge are at the palm of our hand.”

The events organised by the Global Wissen Consult in partnership with The Enterprise Development Centre of PAN Atlantic University and The Covenant University, themed: Impacting with TIE (Tech, Inclusion & Empowerment); and I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights, respectively.

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Ms Sundelin said the topics were chosen to reflect issues relating to women empowerment, women representation in technology, and ways to foster the girl child to lead a successful life.

According to her, Digital Entrepreneurship is creating new ventures and transforming existing businesses by developing novel digital technologies and/or novel usage of such technologies. “The most important skills needed are digital skills and the knowledge they bring.”

She listed some benefits of digital entrepreneurship as included: “easy entry (anyone can get into it), cheaper to set up than traditional businesses, ease of manufacturing and storage (digital entrepreneurs deal with digital content that can be created and stored very easily) and any local business can grow into a global business using digital tools.”

The digital entrepreneur revealed the greatest challenges for women venturing into digital entrepreneurship as lack of confidence, envy and stereotypes, stressing that they could be overcome through knowledge, mentorship and teamwork.

“There are challenges to building a gender equal world, but what can be learnt from the just concluded International Women’s Day celebration and the remarkable events it brought our way is that everyone has a role to play and a voice to amplify in order for gender inequality to become a thing of the past. From technology to politics, space travel to engineering, the representation of women cannot be overemphasized”, Ms Sundelin stressed.

Themed ‘Each for Equal’, this year’s IWD celebration occurred in hundreds of countries across all 6 continents of the world and Nigeria was no exemption. Around the country, government organizations, NGOs, corporations, academic institutions etc. did their part to celebrate women and to make their voices heard, all while striking the ‘each for equal’ pose.

Vanguard