Kalu Onyekachi’s ambitious initiative has already trained over 1,000 girls and launched a billion-naira campaign to bridge Africa’s digital gender divide
Despite Africa’s rapidly expanding tech ecosystem, a stark reality persists: only 17.3% of African tech startups have at least one female co-founder, and 11.1% have a female CEO. It’s a figure that has driven Kalu Onyekachi, Senior Product Designer at Payaza Africa, to launch one of the continent’s most ambitious tech education initiatives.
Lilac Africa, her brainchild, represents more than just another coding bootcamp. It’s a comprehensive ecosystem designed to cultivate the next generation of female tech leaders across the continent, combining rigorous technical training with community building and long-term career support.
Since its launch, the initiative has already trained over 1,000 girls across four critical disciplines: product design, software engineering, machine learning and AI, and product management, skills that Onyekachi knows firsthand are crucial for building successful tech companies but remain underrepresented among African women.
Beyond Coding: Building Comprehensive Tech Leaders
While many tech education programmes focus narrowly on programming languages, Onyekachi has taken a deliberately comprehensive approach with Lilac Africa. The curriculum spans four interconnected disciplines: product design, software engineering, machine learning and AI, and product management, reflecting her understanding that successful tech ecosystems require multifaceted talent.
“We’re not just teaching girls to code,” Onyekachi explains. “We’re training them to think holistically about technology, to understand user needs through product design, build robust solutions through software engineering, leverage artificial intelligence for innovation, and orchestrate it all through effective product management. These are the skills that create startup founders and industry leaders, not just employees.”
This strategic breadth addresses a critical gap in African tech education. The combination of technical depth in software engineering and AI alongside the strategic thinking required for product design and management creates graduates who can bridge the often-problematic divide between technical execution and business strategy.
The machine learning and AI components prove particularly prescient as artificial intelligence transforms industries across Africa, from agricultural prediction systems to financial inclusion platforms. By ensuring women have expertise in these cutting-edge areas, Lilac Africa positions its graduates at the forefront of technological innovation rather than playing catch-up.
A Billion-Naira Vision
Lilac Africa has launched a billion-naira campaign to empower 10,000 girls across Nigeria with digital skills in a bold move to tackle the widening gender gap in the technology sector. The scale of this ambition reflects both the magnitude of the challenge and Onyekachi’s commitment to systemic change rather than incremental progress.
The billion-naira investment, approximately £1.2 million, will fund not just training programmes across all four disciplines but a comprehensive support ecosystem. This includes mentorship networks, industry partnerships, job placement assistance, and ongoing professional development for graduates across product design, software engineering, AI/ML, and product management roles.
“We’re not interested in training girls and then abandoning them to figure out their careers alone,” Onyekachi notes. “The community aspect is as important as the technical training. We’re building a network that will support these women throughout their careers.”
Addressing Structural Barriers
The statistics that motivated Onyekachi to launch Lilac Africa tell a stark story about gender representation in African tech. In Sub-Saharan Africa, just 28% of women pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), creating a pipeline problem that affects the entire tech ecosystem.
But Onyekachi’s approach goes beyond simply increasing participation rates. Drawing on her experience as a product designer who understands user psychology and behaviour, she’s identified the specific barriers that prevent women from not just entering tech but thriving and advancing to leadership positions.
The programme addresses practical challenges, from flexible scheduling that accommodates family responsibilities to creating safe learning environments while also tackling psychological barriers such as imposter syndrome and lack of role models.
The Community-Centric Model
What distinguishes Lilac Africa from other tech education initiatives is its emphasis on community building. At Lilac, we provide the highest form of learning to foster empowerment and equal representation for the female child, but the organisation recognises that skills training alone isn’t sufficient to create lasting change.
The community aspect includes peer support networks, alumni mentorship programmes, and connections to industry leaders. This creates a virtuous cycle where successful graduates become mentors and role models for new cohorts, gradually building a self-sustaining ecosystem of female tech talent.
“Technical skills get you in the door,” Onyekachi observes. “But whether you’re building machine learning models, designing user interfaces, engineering software systems, or managing products, community and networks are what help you build companies and change industries. We’re creating both the skills and the connections.”
Scaling Across Africa
While the billion-naira campaign focuses on Nigeria, Onyekachi’s vision for Lilac Africa extends across the continent. The pan-African approach reflects her understanding that Africa’s tech ecosystem is increasingly integrated, with successful companies and talent moving fluidly across borders.
The programme’s online components enable participation from across Africa, while the community aspects help build connections between women in different countries and markets. This continental perspective is crucial as African tech companies increasingly operate across multiple markets and seek talent from across the continent.
Measuring Real Impact
True to her data-driven background, Onyekachi has built measurement and evaluation into Lilac Africa’s DNA. Success isn’t measured just in participation numbers but in concrete career outcomes: job placements, salary improvements, startup launches, and leadership progression.
The initiative tracks graduates’ career trajectories over multiple years, building a comprehensive picture of long-term impact. This data not only demonstrates the programme’s effectiveness but also provides insights for continuous improvement and expansion.
The Future of Female Tech Leadership
As Lilac Africa approaches its goal of training 10,000 women, the initiative represents something larger than a single education programme. It’s a systematic attempt to reshape Africa’s tech ecosystem by addressing its gender imbalance at scale.
Onyekachi’s background in user research and product design has informed an approach that doesn’t just accept existing barriers but systematically identifies and addresses them. The result is a programme that combines rigorous technical training with the community support and career development necessary for long-term success.
“We’re not just training individual women,” she reflects. “We’re creating a generation of female tech leaders who will reshape the industry. When these women become CTOs, founders, and executives, they’ll create more opportunities for the next generation.”
In an African tech ecosystem still dominated by male leadership, Lilac Africa represents a bold bet on the transformative power of inclusive education and community building. With over 1,000 women already trained and a billion-naira commitment to scaling further, Onyekachi’s initiative is positioning itself as a catalyst for systemic change across the continent’s digital economy.
