Female ICT engineer inspires young women
Staff Writer | Monday May 18, 2015 16:30
Being the only woman presenter from the cell phone industry on the day, Tangane, an engineer by profession shared with the youthful crowd how she made it in the male dominated field where she rose as an engineer to acting manager and now Lead of Intelligent Networks & Value Added Services in just three years.
She is among the only four women engineers in the ICT field at her company--three of whom also hold leadership positions.
Young women could be seen making a beehive to the Orange stall where Tangane patiently fielded questions on available ICT careers for women in the cell phone industry in Botswana. “I’m here to motivate the young women in ICT; I have been working in ICT for six years, including four years at Orange Botswana; I’m saying to the girls, don’t limit yourselves; in my case I never gave up despite being the only woman in a team of eight men; as a young woman one needs to make her mark as well and not shy away from responsibilities thinking you cannot do what men can do,” she said.
The girls learnt that new ICT jobs offered by the cell phone industry in Botswana include infrastructure jobs for communication networks, value added services (VAS), intelligent networks, core network, network monitoring, radio access and optimisation, among others. Tangane is of the view that her company has adopted a deliberate strategy to empower girls in ICT. She has observed that over the last three years Orange Botswana have consistently partnered with the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) and the Botswana Innovations Hub (BIH) in the ‘Girls in ICT’ programme. The partnership is a good initiative that allows the girl child to know that the ICT field is a broad field that they can venture into.