InnovateHer@AU: Making Space for Women to Shape Technology

By Thandolwenkosi Theodora Sibanda

Technology is often described as the future. But who gets to decide what that future looks like?

At Africa University, a growing community of young women is making sure they have a say in the answer. InnovateHer@AU, a young women-led innovation collective within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), is creating a space where women can explore technology, develop their ideas and, perhaps most importantly, see themselves as people who belong in the room where those ideas are being built.

Led by Ms Elizabeth Mafu, a lecturer in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, InnovateHer@AU was formally established on 16 December 2025. The collective brings together around 50 female students, interns and graduates from fields including Software Engineering, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.

“I didn’t set out to start a club, I set out to answer a question that bothered me: Why do we keep building technology for women instead of letting women decide what needs building? A Japan Fellowship on women and disasters, and later, a hair-and-scalp-health project that became hAIr Lab, taught me the same lesson twice: The best technology starts by listening, not assuming.

“So InnovateHer@AU belongs to the students. I sit outside the decisions as founder, mentor, and advisor and Dr Tendai Zengeni has joined as co-mentor to help me support that growth,” Ms Mafu said.

The focus is on giving young women the confidence and opportunity to identify problems around them and imagine technological solutions to those problems. Through community brainstorming sessions, members explore challenges connected to everyday life, including household and care responsibilities. Those ideas can then become cross-faculty projects, bringing together students from technology and disciplines such as health, law, business and humanities.

For Tanaka Dengende, a second-year Software Engineering student, that sense of possibility is at the heart of what InnovateHer@AU represents.

“To me, it is a space that reminds me that as a young woman, my voice, ideas, and leadership matter.”

For Tanaka, being part of the group is also about growth. She sees it as an opportunity to challenge herself while learning alongside other young women and becoming a leader capable of creating opportunities for those who come after her.

That idea of creating space is equally important to Tiyali Nokutenda T. Shoko, a second-year Artificial Intelligence student. For her, InnovateHer@AU addresses a feeling that many young women entering technology may recognise: the feeling that certain spaces were not necessarily designed with them in mind.

“As girls in CEAS, it’s easy to sometimes feel like these spaces aren’t meant for us, so having a community that encourages us to explore, create and lead is really important.”

Tiyali hopes the community can help more young women move beyond simply participating in technology to actively influencing where it goes. She wants InnovateHer@AU to inspire girls to believe in their ideas, pursue careers in technology and become “women who don’t just use technology, but shape the future of it.”

That ambition reflects the wider vision of InnovateHer@AU. Alongside innovation and technical development, the collective places emphasis on feminist technology, accessibility, digital safety, AI and the need to rethink how technology is designed and who it serves. It also looks beyond the university. Through mentorship and digital-safety training, the club aims to create a pathway for younger girls into technology and leadership, extending its impact beyond the CEAS community.

“InnovateHer@AU is a space where young women are reminded that they belong in technology, not just as users, but as creators, problem-solvers and leaders. What makes it important to me is that it creates an environment where we can build confidence, explore their ideas, and use technology to address challenges we actually experience in our communities,” Joyce Lauriella BITIRO, a final year Computer Science student said.

For a university community increasingly surrounded by conversations about AI, software development and digital transformation, the presence of initiatives like InnovateHer@AU raises an important point that innovation is not only about building better technology, but also ensuring that different voices have the opportunity to influence what gets built in the first place.

At InnovateHer@AU, that conversation begins with young women being encouraged to speak, experiment, lead and create. And perhaps the most important innovation is the simplest one: creating a space where young women can look at technology and know that they belong there.

• The writer is a Second-Year Software Engineering student in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences