US Consulate’s Jennifer Foltz Shares Plan to Empower Nigerian Women Through Tech

Jennifer Foltz is committed to supporting women in technology and business in Nigeria.

She has several opportunities to accomplish precisely that in her role as the Deputy Public Affairs Officer of the United States Consulate General in Lagos.

She gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her work with the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs in this quick interview with Technext, as well as other initiatives and ambitions the consulate has to support tech women and business owners in Nigeria.

Jennifer informed me that over 700 Nigerian women have received training through the academy for women entrepreneurs (AWE), a program started in 2019 to train and equip women in small and medium-sized businesses. Many of the program’s beneficiaries have compared the intensive 6-month program to a mini MBA.

She discloses that the US Department of State, where she worked in 2019, established the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs with the goal of providing ambitious women around the world with the knowledge, contacts, and tools they need to advance their businesses.

“Since the academy’s inception, roughly 770 women have graduated from it, and they will always be alumni of the US government,” she stated.

She explained to me that support is given in a variety of ways when I asked her how they support these women after they have received training from the academy: “We will always support these women and that can be done in a variety of ways, sometimes we give them small grants, sometimes we put them on social media, or support them in any other way.”

Jennifer Foltz on much training and little funding?

Many people hold the opinion that African women who run their own businesses, whether in IT or another industry, are overtrained, underfunded, and supervised. This idea has been shared by many people,

I enquired about Jennifer Foltz’s opinions, and she provided me with her perspective on the problem of financing for women in tech and broadly for female entrepreneurs in Africa.

Foltz tells me that although the AWE does not exactly give funds, they have several other ways to help the women access funds from other organisations.

“ the USAID gives $10,000 dollar business grants to these women who apply in Lagos the LSDTF has given low-interest loans to our women and we have also worked with BOI and a private sector funder and much more. We know that funding is a big challenge globally not just in Nigeria, which is why my team and I are constantly asking ourselves, what next? especially for these women, what more can be done to help them?”.

We have this program from the department of commerce called “Select USA” in tech where they display chosen businesses from all around the world for investors to invest in, according to Jennifer Foltz. These programs are doing a lot to assist teach and equip women in tech.

The winner of our pitch competition for AWE alumni is currently attending the program in the US and networking with CEOs of big IT businesses from around the world.

She informs me that the Academy is now assisting Nigerian tech women in this manner. She states, “This is where we are at right now, we take funding women seriously. We are not yet able to disperse funds as we would like to. While the training will continue, we are continually considering what comes next and how to best link these women to opportunities that provide them with the financing and visibility they require.

She informed me that there are particular initiatives aimed at supporting women and girls in tech, despite the fact that AWE is not primarily for women entrepreneurs, particularly those in tech.

“We have a program called tech women and tech girls, for tech girls, we take two high school girls from the north and south each, we select them from Nigeria and send them to the United States for a six-week program which we believe will impact their whole lives as they are getting these opportunities and exposure young,” Jennifer Foltz says.

We have a network of alumni across the nation for the tech ladies. Additionally, they recently ran a mentorship program in which they found women working for large IT businesses and matched them with young college students interested in a career in technology. They were introduced to people, educated about the position, and spent a few weeks shadowing them thanks to this arrangement.

Jennifer Foltz offered the following advice to any female IT enthusiast:

“It was fantastic to me when I realized that there were tech women in Nigeria who are space scientists. This indicates that if you are interested in a career in technology, there are already amazing female role models in the tech industry in Nigeria. To make sure that other young girls out there notice them and are inspired by them, we make sure we magnify and convey their experiences. Therefore, take inspiration from the woman who is already accomplishing amazing things and know that you can too.