The way I founded Women in Tech Malawi is random and, honestly, I think it was chance.
I was studying Computing and Information Systems at the time and my favourite courses were Computer Programming, Systems Design and Analysis, and Software Engineering and Algorithms Design and Analysis. These were seen as bold choices considering my gender. If there is one thing that still annoys me when I think back, it is the "but you're a girl" comments I would get when I expressed my genuine interests. To me, gender had nothing to do with what I liked or what I could or could not do. My passion towards something is what matters.
The criticism came from different places, but the most frustrating part was that it showed up when I was asking for help. It did not make sense to me at all. I would go to my male classmates, ask them to help me understand concepts or give me a starting point for a side project, and most of the time they would just grab my notebook and write down the answers instead of having an actual conversation, the way they would with each other. They would say "but you're a girl" instead of engaging with the project concept I was presenting. I never liked it. I felt misunderstood and under-supported.
So I searched for communities that would actually get it. I found Womentech Network and I loved it immediately. It was warm and welcoming. I volunteered for roles and when I disclosed that I was a beginner, people were more than willing to show me how things worked. I felt a sense of belonging and it made me more passionate about being in tech, not just software engineering, but tech as a whole. Through that community I learned there was more to the industry than code and hacking. I was so mind-blown by that and I became busy in the best way. I wanted to learn everything.
When I look back at some of the messages I was sending to industry leaders during that time, I sometimes get embarrassed and ask myself "why did you say it like that? Oh my." But it got me into conversations, gave me knowledge I needed, and led me to answers I was looking for. It made me more curious and more passionate. I am glad I looked beyond my limited understanding of how to approach certain people, because in the end, they responded. If I had waited until I was perfect, I would not have gotten anywhere, because perfect is an illusion.
Even today, I always encourage people to use the knowledge they have right now to build the life they want. When you know better, look back at the foundation, laugh at yourself here and there, but most importantly, see the physical evidence of how much you have grown. In software, I always encourage people to release and deploy what they have built, no matter how they feel about it. That is just version one. Almost every app you use today is a newer version of something that once looked rough. It is called growth, and that is what is needed in tech and in life. Come back to your work, improve it always with what you learn along the way.
Anyway, back to my issue with communities. After finding that sense of belonging through Womentech Network, I felt I needed something closer to home. I searched for "Womentech Network Malawi" and "Women in Tech Malawi" and found nothing. It was sad. I knew then that I was not the only person who had felt the way I felt, or gone through what I went through despite having the capability. So I started something. It was really just a hashtag: #WomenInTechMalawi. My idea was simple: when someone searched for women in tech from Malawi, my posts should come up. It worked, but not quite in the way I had imagined. Most people who reached out were also beginners, and what they wanted was help with confidence. Apparently, I came across as so confident that they thought I had it all figured out. Me? Oh my.
I understood it to some extent. I love writing and I enjoy sharing. I enjoy explaining things that fascinate me, and a lot of things fascinate me. So when people saw my posts, they read certainty. What they did not see was the confusion I was also sitting in. I was the first to flood my timeline with frustration when things were not making sense. But ladies trusted me and asked me to mentor them. I needed mentorship myself, but I put on a brave face and held their hands along the way. It felt good. It felt right.
As the questions kept coming and the same themes kept repeating, I thought: why not just create an open group where people support each other? So I did. To me it was simply a space where like-minded people could feel safe, ask questions without being judged, and not feel the need to judge others either. That was it. Until I realised it had become something much larger.
I founded this community in April 2021. Some of the people I started with have left the group, and some I no longer even speak to. Over the years I kept trying to avoid calling it an organisation and hid behind the word "community" because it sounded friendlier and more manageable. "Organisation" felt too big, too serious, too much. But the more I sat with it, the more I had to admit the truth: Women in Tech Malawi has been an organisation since the very beginning, and I have been its founder and Executive Lead all along.
When I say that out loud, I take a big breath, because it is a big and serious thing. But this year I decided to stop running from it. I registered it formally and built an official platform. In February I released version one of the platform. In March I began the legal registration process. I am excited.
The decision I made this year is to be bold, to embrace who I am and what I am building without guilt and without listening to the imposter. That starts with accepting that Women in Tech Malawi is significant, and that I am the one who will lead it, without doubt or confusion.
