From Catching Fish To Writing Codes: The Story Of Female Heroes
The first ever Nigerian CNN Hero; Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, founder of Pearls Africa Foundation, has in 2015 bid to fight poverty and also change the narratives of a high percentage of women in the tech industry. This foundation birthed the idea which made her start a programme called GirlsCoding.
Among Ajayi-Akinfolarin’s numerous testimonies is Sharon Okpoe, who has lived her entire 17 years in Makoko — known as the world’s largest “floating slum” — built on a lagoon in Lagos.
Okpoe’s father is a fisherman, and her mother sells smoked fish, eking out a living on the fringes of Africa’s largest city.
Sharon was given the opportunity to attend the GirlsCoding academy after school and during the summer, where dozens of other girls ages 10 to 17 get trained in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python and Scratch.
Miss Okpoe, through her rigorous training at the academy, has helped create an app called ‘Makoko Fresh’ that went live this summer. The application enables fishermen like her father to sell seafood directly to customers. Her innovation does not only encourage these girls to want to code, but it also solves a community problem in the Makoko environment. Now, customers can find easier ways to connect with the fishermen and deliver the already bought seafood.
Her dream is to become a software engineer and she hopes to study computer science at Harvard. Her passion and experience as a developer has enriched her to want to continue striding on towards excellence.
