Ethel Cofie, volunteers for Airtel’s evolve with STEM Initiative

CEO and Founder of EDEL Technology Consulting and Founder of Women in Tech Africa, Ethel Cofie, joined Lucy Quist and a team from Airtel for a very engaging mentoring session at Mataheko JT Primary School.

Ethel who signed up as a volunteer for the “Evolve with STEM” initiative, shared her story as a young girl who had a dream to own a business with the lively and attentive upper primary pupils of the school. She encouraged them to freely dream, write down their dreams and work to attain them.

“It has been a great experience, spending time with these pupils, telling them my story and encouraging them to believe in themselves. I was pleased with how attentive they were, especially, during the video session, where we shared with them the inspiring story of young Sierra Leonean Kelvin Doe well known for teaching himself engineering at the age of 13 and building his own radio station where he plays music and broadcasts news. They also showed a lot of interest and potential during the experiential session when my team and I demonstrated to them the simple steps of building a website using basic computer coding”, Ethel said.

The technology entrepreneur added, “I am very glad that I signed up to support Lucy Quist and Airtel Ghana on this insightful initiative which seeks to demystify STEM for our young ones whilst encouraging them to be the best they can be. As an IT professional in Africa, I think this is a great and timely initiative that will shape minds and destinies.”

Lucy Quist expressed her gratitude to Ethel saying, “We are excited to have Ethel sign up as a mentor for the Evolve with STEM initiative. Hers is the kind of story we want to share to inspire every young person who has a dream or aspires for a career in STEM; a young hardworking entrepreneur in the technology industry who is making her mark. Our gratitude also goes to her team from EDEL Technology Consulting and Women in Tech Africa who joined us to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Championing this cause has been truly fulfilling for me personally and also for Airtel as a whole. We are Making our Change and encouraging others to do same”.

The Exploratory, an initiative of the African Women Advocacy Project, Airtel’s partner on this initiative brought more color to the session as they introduced the pupils to some very practical and hands-on experiments on the transmission of sound and to construct a simple two way ‘telephone”.

Ethel Cofie is CEO and Founder of EDEL Technology Consulting (An IT Consulting and Digital Products Company in West Africa and Europe) and Founder of Women in Tech Africa, Africa’s largest women in tech group with members in over 30 Africa countries and physical chapter in Ghana, Kenya and London and growing. She is also a Mandela Fellow for President Obama's Young African Leaders initiative (YALI) and a High caliber IT Professional.

Airtel Ghana is renowned for its contribution to education in Ghana having received several awards in CSR including Best CSR Company for Education at the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards 2015.