Women being under-represented in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector has long been discussed and debated.

Why are there not enough women in the ICT sector? What must be done to get more women in ICT? Are there enough women who occupy decision making roles within the sector, are only some of the questions.

And the answer is usually no.

Popular social network Facebook has Sheryl Sandberg as its chief operating officer, while Yahoo has Marissa Ann Mayer as the current president and chief executive officer.

Global technology company IBM is also led by a woman, Ginni Rometty, who is the current chairwoman and chief executive officer.

And closer to home South Africa’s science and technology department is led by a woman, minister Naledi Pandor.

But is that enough considering the magnitude of the industry and the ability of having women lead ICT companies? Maybe not.

According to the European Commission the ICT sector is rapidly growing, creating around 120,000 new jobs every year.

But only 30% of the around 7 million people working in the ICT sector are women, according to a report by the European Commission.

So how do we then get more women employed in the ICT sector and leading multi-billion corporations?

Maybe there isn’t an instant formula to achieve this but there is a start, and multinational software delivery and products company,ThoughtWorks, seems to be doing just that.

ThoughtWorks services clients in a number of sectors including financial services, health, travel, and retail and its primary offering is the creation of custom software applications for corporate clients.

The company’s chief technology officer is Dr Rebecca Parsons, and its managing director for North America is Joanna Parke.

Most recently ThoughtWorks announced the appointment of Wambui Kinya as the head of operations in Africa.

Kinya will focus on the company’s operations in South Africa and Uganda.

She has been in the industry for more than 15 years specialising in digital, mobile marketing and technology consulting. Prior to joining ThoughtWorks, she was a director for Praekelt Consulting (East Africa), and also worked in other corporations such as IBM Global Business Services and Digitas (Publicis Groupe).

Speaking to ITWeb Africa’s Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, Kinya shared some of her plans for the region and what we can expect from ThoughtWorks in the future.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Congratulations on your appointment as ThoughtWorks’ head of Africa operations. Can you tell me about what you plan to do in this role?

WAMBUI KINYA: My role will essentially be about how to shape our business in Africa to best suit ThoughtWorks in Africa. It really is about understanding what really is at the core of what we can deliver as Africans in Africa, and how to match that to what our clients are asking for, which we find to be less about what’s worked in North America but how do we use our methodology and the team, and skills that we’ve got to actually begin to disrupt and innovate in an African context. I think that for me is quite exciting in terms of how do we then arrange and optimise how we operate.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What is the scope of the region that you will be overlooking?

WAMBUI KINYA: It is all our African operations. So its our office in South Africa, our office in Uganda as well as new territories that we are looking at for expansion.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Can you share more about those expansion plans?

WAMBUI KINYA: We are looking at increasing our presence in East Africa and we continue to service clients out of West Africa from our current offices but looking to see how that might scale so that we can open an office. We are looking at Accra in Ghana.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: How would you describe the ICT scene in the regions in which you operate and where you are looking to expand?

WAMBUI KINYA: I think its an exciting time in as much as the convergence of technology with people’s lives and the way people behave and the way they interact whether interacting in business or government or socially, I think that’s a trend that is quite exciting globally and how we attract that in Africa compared to the global North. I think that is the exciting challenge for our time and an exciting challenge for a lot of our clients. The way we engage with technology, the way we engage with hardware, and devices have really changed.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What are key challenges that Africa faces or in the regions that you will be looking after?

WAMBUI KINYA: From a software perspective I think the biggest challenge is lots of companies and even governments are still relying on some of the major software enterprise players who are doing a lot of their R&D outside of our market. So how do you create software that has relevance for your end-user? I think that is one of the biggest challenges and how do you produce it quickly. Other challenges: because we haven’t allowed the software industry to really mature because of this reliance on big enterprise players to deliver to out of another region, we’re not really growing our continent and enhancement of the craft the actual software development craft, which doesn’t allow us to really be able to build big systems by Africans for Africa. I think we are beginning to see a bit of a shift in the right direction but more competence is needed from companies as well as governments in terms of investments in really enhancing the software industry locally.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: And what about security as a challenge?

WAMBUI KINYA: Security is one that I’m quite passionate about. So when you look at who actually owns our data and where are those systems actually placed, who is hosting that data you really begin to see that we don’t have as much control in the context of Africa because much of it is hosted or managed far away from us. So security and data that is collected from more and more devices and the convergence of how data is being shared is becoming relevant. I think its an area we at ThoughtWorks are really looking into in terms of how best to help our clients and also become more embedded in terms of our approach. So we are going to really begin to assess that this could be used in multiple channels. It’s something we are really beginning to entrench in our process, beginning to engage with clients before delivering and testing our products before we actually deploy.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: So would you say security is something you will be pursuing in your role?

WAMBUI KINYA: Definitely. I think we need more in the context of better understanding when collecting data in so many new ways. How will we store, access that data? Because getting all this additional insight about the way we save, the way we interact with things, and with people and with government and so on has the potential to really help and leapfrog the way we solve things. Like getting data on a medical text for example, and be able to quickly access that. Having that data makes it possible for us to do many more things faster but how do enable data policies around that, that will protect the privacy of individuals.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What are your thoughts on government’s involvement in the ICT security, are they doing enough or should more done?

WAMBUI KINYA: I think corporations are generally going to be at the forefront of how we manage data privacy and security. I think governments could be doing more and I think the way that they should be doing more is also by engaging with the creators of technology and hardware in the conversations of legislature.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What are some of your predictions for the foreseeable future?

WAMBUI KINYA: In the context of software industry in Africa its really in how to build and create around enterprise systems that are built with a local context. Actually building systems that are taking advantage of trends and be able to very quickly turn that around and shape technology to a trend that can make predictions. How to use technology to continue to be relevant to people.