Article supplied the IITPSA Women in IT Chapter (WIIT)
In celebration of International Girls in ICT Day this month, the Women in IT Chapter speaks with Tanaka Dhliwayo, Founder and CEO at Tanie Codes Org and 2025 IITPSA President’s Awards winner in the Dynamism in ICT Youth Award category – on the shift from using technology to building it and what that means for the next generation of South African girls.
“I had to build confidence in my voice,” Tanaka says. “To take up space even when I didn’t feel ready.”
Growing up in Soweto, I noticed a gap and was ready enough to do something about it. She is the founder of Tanie Codes, a platform that teaches girls from township communities not just to use technology but to build with it. On the 23rd of April 2026, International Girls in ICT Day asked the rest of the ICT community to do the same.
A theme, and a question
Girls in ICT Day, led globally by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is observed every year on the fourth Thursday of April. This year’s ITU theme – AI for Development: Girls Shaping the Digital Future is more than a slogan. It is a question. In a decade where artificial intelligence will reshape almost every industry, who gets to shape AI itself?
The numbers explain why the question matters. Research published by the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA) and Africa Analysis shows that women currently represent just 39.5% of South Africa’s ICT workforce. Only around 13% of the country’s STEM graduates are women. Globally, UNESCO estimates that women make up just 12% of AI researchers. The people building the systems that will define the next decade still do not look like the communities those systems will affect most.
A gap she lived, and then decided to close
Tanaka’s entry into technology did not start with access. It started with its absence.
“Growing up in Soweto, I didn’t see many girls around me being exposed to technology beyond basic computer literacy,” she says. “Tech felt distant like something happening somewhere else, for other people.”
That distance changed when she learned to code. What shifted was not only her skill but her framing of technology itself. Coding became less a subject and more a tool, a way to see the world and to change her place in it. She founded Tanie Codes to compress that distance for the next generation of South African girls. The platform works specifically with underserved township communities, where access to devices, connectivity, and funding remains a stubborn structural barrier. It is not built on abstract good intentions. It is built on a gap she lived through.
“One of the biggest challenges,” Tanaka says, “has been navigating spaces where you’re often underestimated because of your age, background, or simply because you’re a young woman in tech. I’ve learned to be resourceful and deeply intentional, building partnerships, creating opportunities from what’s available, and staying rooted in the purpose behind the work.”
From using technology to building with it
The most important thing AI has changed, Tanaka argues, is the distance between an idea and a working solution.
“AI can personalise learning, connect girls to global opportunities, and expose them to knowledge that would otherwise be out of reach,” she says. “But more importantly, I see AI as a tool for creation, not just consumption. Girls can use AI to build solutions that directly address challenges in their communities, such as education, healthcare, and small business support. The goal is to shift from using technology to building with it. And AI makes that transition more accessible than ever before.”
That shift from user to builder is the development of this year’s theme, which is naming. And it is not happening by default. A 2024 ImpactHER survey across 52 African countries found that 86% of women reported having no basic AI proficiency. Closing that gap is not a matter of simple exposure. According to Tanaka, it requires structural work: earlier technology education in township and rural schools, mentorship pipelines that match real exposure with real role models, and programmes designed around the realities of the communities they serve rather than transplanted from elsewhere.
“Support needs to be both structural and personal access, and encouragement.”— Tanaka, Founder of Tanie Codes
What this asks of the ICT community
The theme places the responsibility squarely on those already in the industry. Girls will not shape AI unless the sector actively makes it possible for them to enter it, stay in it, and lead within it. For women already working in ICT, Tanaka’s framing points to three specific commitments.
- Open doors earlier. Introduce girls to technology as builders, not as end users, from primary school onwards, particularly in under-resourced communities where exposure is scarcest.
- Mentor with specificity. Generic encouragement does not close confidence gaps. Girls need to see and speak to women who look like them and come from where they come from.
- Build context-aware programmes. Initiatives imported from one context to another rarely take root. The programmes that work are the ones that respond to real community problems with real community resources.
These commitments are not new. What has been missing is the intentionality to make them count.
Access is not the finish line
Asked where she wants the sector to be in five years, Tanaka’s answer is unambiguous.
“The future is not just about access. It’s about ownership.”— Tanaka, Founder of Tanie Codes
That is the standard the Women in IT Chapter is holding itself to this Girls in ICT Day. Not how many girls we reach, but how many go on to build. Not how many are counted in the workforce, but how many shape what the workforce looks like next.
A future worth building: WHAT TO DO, THIS GIRLS IN ICT DAY
If you lead a tech team, partner with the Women in IT Chapter on a school visit in the coming quarter.
If you are a woman in ICT, mentor one girl from a community you would not otherwise meet.
If you run a business, fund one device, one data bundle, or one programme that places a young woman in front of a keyboard with purpose.
More about Tanaka Dhliwayo, Founder and CEO at Tanie Codes Org
22-year-old Tanaka Dhliwayo is a social entrepreneur, software developer, IT tutor and tech advocate. She is the Founder and CEO of Tanie Codes, a non-profit organisation based in Soweto that introduces girls to computer programming, robotics and essential digital skills.
Through Tanie Codes, she has created opportunities for hundreds of girls from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain exposure to STEM careers and acquire skills that prepare them for the future digital workforce.
Tanaka was named one of South Africa’s Top 15 Geeks by Geek Culture, recognised as a Rising Star in Emerging Technology by Wired for Women and received the Aspiring Teen Award at the Women in Tech Africa Awards. She is also Chairperson of Her Tech Society – a pioneering women-in-tech movement.