Gender transformation through human-centric engineering

As technology skills become more democratised, and the ICT sector sees greater gender transformation, a new breed of tech engineer is emerging: a skilled, highly intelligent woman determined to use technology for the good of humanity.

As the UN Women agency states, “Innovation and technology provide unprecedented opportunities to break trends and reach those who are the most likely to be left behind”.

Telkom Executive for Research and Innovation, Dr Maletsabisa (Tsabi) Molapo has made it her life’s work to put human needs at the centre of technology development.

She has done it in the field of natural language processing (NLP), in quantum computing education, and in user-experience (UX) research.

She describes herself as “a human-driven engineer”. She began her career as a telecommunications engineer, after completing her undergraduate degree in computer systems engineering.

After working in the telco space, her interest in the relationship between humans and technology drove her back to academia, to design the systems that people need. By the time she obtained her Ph.D., Dr Molapo had developed an interest in AI, specifically NLP.

Dr Molapo has developed an affinity for spotting opportunities where her technology skills can make a difference for communities.

“In my early work, we worked extensively rural communities, where we didn’t engage in English,” she says. “Most spoken or written data is collected in the local languages, which then has to be transcribed, translated manually before analysis. That is where my interest in automated language processing came from.”

Years later, she ended up leading the IBM South Africa research lab focusing on NLP applications, in healthcare, and education. The wheel had turned full circle.

At IBM Research, she obtained and co-invented several patents applying advanced technologies for social good, including AI for infant safety monitoring, sensing and navigation assistance for visually impaired individuals, and generative AI to improve treatment adherence in patients with chronic health conditions. Dr Molapo is encouraged by the way the tech industry is evolving.

“The industry has become more democratised,” she says. “If someone is passionate about healthcare, there is a place for them in biotechnology. A passionate African-language speaker can support African NLP technologies...”

Her work at Telkom is a clear expression of this trend. One of the goals of the Telkom R&D group is to research and develop customer-centric technologies that address the unique needs of South African consumers through intelligent connectivity solutions.

This trend towards user-oriented technology design by women is at its most focused in an emerging field known as Femtech – technologies designed specifically for women – often in the healthcare space.

There is a plethora of exciting innovations in this space, improving lives and empowering women through technology. An early example was the menstruation-tracking app Clue.

More recently, there have been virtual clinic Tia and Nurx, a prescription delivery service. Rosy addresses the sexual health of women, Thinx is related to menstrual health, Elvie produces pelvic care devices, and Elektra Health provides menopause education.

These Femtech innovations are improving the quality of life for millions of women, but they also represent significant business opportunities. McKinsey notes that “Women are not just consumers, but the primary healthcare decision-makers for themselves and often for their families”. Femtech funding reached $2.5 billion by the end of 2021.

The upside for this trend of women’s tech design is enormous, and there is certainly an appetite in the industry for drive this evolution. Telkom itself has several thriving programmes to develop women tech leaders within its ranks.

The tech industry is replete with initiatives to improve women’s representation in the sector. That said, there remains a long way to go before gender parity is achieved. A PWC report found that women hold only 19% of tech-related roles at the world's top 10 technology corporations.

“A lot of effort is going into supporting women in tech,” says Dr Molapo. “More needs to be done, but the more women we have in leadership, the more we will drive those conversations.”

Telkom invests significantly in developing its internal talent to build a strong succession pool and nurture a robust leadership pipeline through a variety of dedicated development programme.

One such initiative is the Female Leadership Development Programme (FLDP), now in its fifth iteration, targeting middle and junior management levels. The programme has also expanded to include FLDP Pinnacle, which is specifically designed for executive-level leadership.