Discover Regina Honu’s mission to close Ghana’s digital gender gap, empowering thousands of women through Soronko Academy.
The gender gap is observed in digital technology. While 55% of men worldwide have access to the Internet, for women it’s only 48%. The digital gender gap is largest in Africa, where only 20% of women are online in comparison to 37% of men. But this gender gap in technology is narrowing in the Ghana region of Africa.
Bridging the Gender Gap
Regina Honu is bridging the gender gap by teaching digital skills to women and girls in Ghana.
She was a talented software developer at an international bank and was even offered a position at Microsoft. But she passed on the opportunity to a secure future and launched a social enterprise in her twenties. In 2013, Regina Honu founded Soronko Solutions in order to provide digital education to children in poor rural areas.
“But then I would be one of the millions of people contributing my very little quota to Microsoft – but if I stayed in Ghana, I could really make a change.”
Regina Honu
She soon learned that even when it was offered for free, young girls rarely participated in the program, while more boys actively did so.
”In low-income areas, girls are vulnerable to exploitation through child marriage – a financial ‘opportunity’ that means parents may not invest in a daughter’s education.”
“The value of a girl is in her bride price. That’s the only value she is bringing in the family.”
Regina Honu started a campaign to raise awareness in girls.
‘Tech Needs Girls’
Local female computer scientists taught young girls computer skills and career education and became their mentors.
“Digital skills are in demand and they are top-paying skills that will allow women and girls to have economic independence,”
-Regnina Honu, founder of Soronko Academy
A campaign that started in one small city in Ghana spread to 8 other cities and spread to neighboring Burkina Faso.
In 2016, girls educated through Tech Needs Girls became coding experts, and together, Regina established a school.
Soronko Academy
It provides education in coding skills and design to unemployed women, deaf and autistic children, and everyone between the ages of 5 and 75. Various technical training courses, Business solutions for entrepreneurs, Job and internship opportunities for the graduates.
As of 2023, 25,000 students have graduated from Soronko Academy, and thousands of female graduates became digital professionals.
And now, the proportion of Ghana’s female entrepreneurs is 46.4%, the highest in Africa.
Many young women and girls are being educated in Ghana, on their path to become the next Regina Honu.
Without the insights and creativity of half the world, science and technology will fulfill just half their potential.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres