When I was 7, I lived at Madalla, Niger state, just along the express that connects Suleja and Abuja. My mum had a store that sold bags of rice, one day after school, I sat on a stool in front of my mum's shop, drinking caprisonne and eating chocolate chic-choc whilst eyeing the very hard cylindrical banana bubble gum sitting in a can.

My mum left to go talk to a friend and it was the perfect time to steal "chewing gum" I gulped my caprisonne and followed her to make sure she was out of sight, she was already two streets away and I stood in front of the next shop smiling mischievously, waiting to prowl and relish my loot; just then something caught my eyes, I was in front of the fair lady's shop, I did not know her name, I only muttered "good morning aunty" whenever I saw her but here I stood, at 1:30pm under the scorching northern Nigeria sun watching this mini-god make plain looking words look beautiful. I was intrigued. I wanted to run into her shop immediately and force her to teach me whatever she was doing but I needed a plan.

Few minutes later she came out and sent me on an errand, I did it with a smile, I even offered to sweep her shop, pick up papers, whatever she wanted; she knew something was amiss, I wasn't exactly keen on sweeping, no 7 year old was and I certainly did not like spending time with her, so what was this?

Some days later, I summoned courage and told her to explain what she did with those plain letters on her desktop, she looked at me with a comforting smile, asked me to sit in front of her other desktop, she moved the mouse to an icon and double clicked on it, few seconds later I could see "Mavis beacon teaches typing"

I had heard this Spanish song from an electrician's shop close to my mum's and I used to mutter this phrase I always heard from the lady singing whenever I was excited, I yelled it.

"Azucar!"

That was the beginning of my journey, my journey into Tech.

Fast forward to the time of cancel culture, Stan twitter and Nigerians striving to dominate the Tech industry; it was a few days to my 22nd birthday, I wanted to make a small budget of things to buy; I decided to ask our best friend, google, on how to go about it; every blog, including Wikipedia (my personal swiss army knife) suggested excel.
I had conquered the entire Microsoft package but excel, I had avoided her like she was the 6th plague and I, a skincare enthusiast (please read the bible)

I sat on the bed and opened excel, I saw rows and columns, they looked like tiny boxes to me, it confused and annoyed me, I wondered why anyone would want to work with something that looked so weird, so awful, so difficult to understand.

I enrolled on Udemy and bought an excel course from creativity unleashed.
Three classes in and I was hooked;( "merge and center" seemed magical to me, conditional formatting blew me away; the excitement I felt when I saw words transform in the fair lady's shop had nothing on this(by the way, she was only using "word art" on a title).

I took more classes and started to feel like a numbers connoisseur, I was using the "if" function to shake tables, I created parliaments using VLOOKUP, I made my alter-egos marvel at the beauty and ease of Pivot tables.
I loved excel and I started using her for everything; even projects that did not require a workbook, I opened one.
I wanted to calculate numbers for my birthday but I ended up doing something else, I made a calculator, a calculator for enthralling ladies like myself. I keep updating my ideas on it daily, it is my everything project on excel as I am trying to infuse everything I have learnt from the course I took.

This new found love was my first step into data analysis. After her, I got a course on SQL and python; I have already learnt SQL to a considerable level and published an article based on my first project where I analyzed a dataset of movies produced in the last 42years. I have also briefly dabbled into PowerBi for visualization (although I feel with a little tweak upwards, excel would offer all she does and more)

Azucar! remember this exclamation from earlier? it is from the queen of salsa, Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso de la Santísima Trinidad (October 21, 1925 – July 16, 2003), Cuban American legend, Also known simply as Celia Cruz. It is also an image of her you see at the start of this article, clad in a colorful, beautifully patterned blue dress. Celia's music embodies everything I want my excel sheets to look like; beautiful, colorful, innovative and assertive. yes, assertive. Whenever one has a project to do on excel, I want you to approach it the way Celia approaches a song, excellent melody, happiness, an open mind eager to learn (Celia could speak Yoruba) and "Azucar"
Excel is not stiff, tiring and ugly; she's beautiful and wants to live too.

Attached above is a workbook in my calculator, an introductory part, it represent the month of July, this is so easy to replicate but if you had asked me last year, I would not believe it was excel and might label you a liar.

This is another sheet from my calculator. the titles are different for each month, it has beautiful meanings and description. if you are spending your money, you should at least feel pretty while you do it and understand the inflows and outflows.

This is what the body looks like, different for each month, with images that depict whatever Image we have decided to potray, this is from a "green Pokémon" month.

I was enjoying excel, Sql was treating me well, I yelled "Azucar!" whenever I completed a query, life was beautiful, at least there was no thought provoking issue till someone asked me how I felt as a woman in tech.

A woman in tech? Ay, Dios mio!

Being a #woman in tech did not ring so much bells, it was not a huge statement for me.
Stay with me please.
Firstly, I feel really strange identifying with the hashtag, with any hashtag that has "tech" as a prefix or suffix, in fact, I still feel like an imposter in the field.
Secondly, I could only identify with it simply because I am a woman, and I thought that was fine, and still think it is fine. I liken it to the CWO (Catholic women's organization) it has no other meaning, no hidden connotations, just an association for catholic women, hence, just a hashtag for "women in tech"

Please, stay with me.
Touchy topic for many, but be still, for just 2 minutes.

I did not see any other reason for a tech-specific hashtag, maybe because I am just starting out and the women at the top are paving the way and making sure the upcoming women do not suffer, I say this because of the ease of accessing resources, the communities, numerous scholarships empowering women trying to get into tech e.g. her tech trail's new scholarship that would cater for 5000 women going into different tech fields.

From research and conversations online, there are workspace lapses showing huge differences in the number of women employed in tech roles, another study showed that more women were getting bachelor's degrees yet only 15% of computer science graduates are women; I though "maybe there was just a small percentage of women that applied and maybe lots of women did not get into the computer science program as they applied for other programs".

And then, at this moment, I began to understand the need, the exigency, the urgent importance!
I mean, think about it, if more women were getting bachelor's degrees then more should be getting computer science degrees. It's easy maths!

who are the culprits and how can we tackle them?
Conditioning. Social conditioning. Gender conditioning.

Remember how my light skin aunty from 2007 taught me to use MS word? how that single act implanted the idea (subconsciously) that I could use computers and do about anything? positive early socialization and a strong support system.

Conditioning explains why during physics practicals most ladies stood aside and let the 15year old teenage boy handle the simple pendulum practical (a string and a 5gram ball) Maybe if we amplified the fact that women could pick 'technical drawing' instead of 'catering' as an elective course while writing WAEC (West African Examination Council) we would have more women pursuing a career in architecture, if we had also pointed out that with her teaching degree, she did not just have to teach, she could be in management and make teaching policies.

Luckily, we are all waking up and encouraging young people to do better, this is why I, and at least 80% of women have not found it difficult growing or transitioning into tech recently.

What if this movement was fictitious? then I would probably be having a difficult time finding allies, it would be stressful and socially weird to join the tech workforce.
This, this is the reason why the hashtag and every other thing done for the actualization of women equality is important.

You might ask, why not fight for just women generally, why specifically tech?
Well, in the next 10years, every industry would have to use a tech tool in one way; technology would determine the direction of the future, if it becomes the single largest employer of workforce, it would be a shame if women were left out.
Also, breaking boundaries and presenting novel ideas to the world are an inherent part of Tech, women can offer a unique perspective that provides more angles to solve problems.

I draw parallels from the feminism movement and how it saw to it that women today have major rights.
Choosing not to pick a side or fight for women's right is a luxury I can afford to choose because someone already started the war, with foot soldiers pushing her ideas into the world every second, I can live easy knowing the foundation has been laid but it does not mean the issues are gone and it also doesn't mean there aren't certain levels one would get to and not experience sexism.

If the hashtag exists, it means there is a vital need, my/your inability to currently connect does not invalidate it. For instance, in 2020, chess master Nigel Short claimed women are not "hardwired" enough to play chess, I mean - if he can make such claims in big 2020 then it means there's still work to do. A lot of work.
If constant sermons can aid mindset shifts then we will continue to do it.
If groundbreaking initiatives such as the "Her tech-trail scholarships" and other women focused initiatives can help, then we will continue to fund them.
If we put the limelight on women who have achieved something in tech, to inspire young women then we shall continue to react calcuim oxide with a hydrogen-oxygen flame.
A stitch in time saves nine, so, if taking these steps would help women then we should by all means do it!

We also have to understand that ideas change, Feminism and femininity used to be mutually exclusive, because feminists (suffragettes) at the time (first/second generation feminism) felt it was important to be taken seriously and a woman in mango flavored lip-gloss and pink heels was not serious; we have moved past that and progressed to breaking current barriers in inequality, the facets we fight for today would be different tomorrow but they are all working towards the greater good.

Please read below articles and watch videos attached for more insight:
If you've not seen this gem, We should all be feminists | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TEDxEuston
Also, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - "Dear Ijeawele" and Raising a Child to Be a Feminist
This article explains more, Innate or Conditioned: Why So Few Women in STEM?
On Celia cruz:
The Blackness of sugar: Celia Cruz and the performance of (trans)nationalism
Remembering Celia Cruz: Celia in my heart

Learn excel and support #womenintech #womenwhotech #womenwhocode.

#azucar.