In order to close the gender gap in the male-dominated profession of cybersecurity, Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait, has underscored the importance of increasing the number of women working in the sector.
Speaking Monday night in Nairobi at the Acyberschool Top 100 Cybersecurity Women in Africa 2025 presentation, Kassait urged more efforts to boost the number of women pursuing cybersecurity-related commercial ventures and cybersecurity education in higher education.
“It comes at a time when we are seeing more women enter the tech industry. We still have disparity in terms of balancing between women and men in terms of tech, but seeing us celebrate the top 100 women in cybersecurity in Africa; it’s an opportunity for us to motivate young girls to go into that space, those in colleges,” remarked Kassait.
She urged more women to explore opportunities in cybersecurity as the government seeks to increase the opportunities for women in the Cybertech industry.
“I think we have to do both downstream and upstream. The fact that we are seeing more people and more women in particular enter the space, the cyberspace, is something that will make us reflect and even motivate young girls to want to go into that space.” added Kassait.
As Africa embraces digital transformation, there is a growing need for cybersecurity professionals, but despite their increasing contribution, women are still under-represented in this industry.
Acybershool Chief Executive Officer Evalyn Oloo, highlighted some of the initiatives undertaken by the institution to onboard more women in the cybersecurity industry.
“Acyberschool is intentional about not only celebrating women in cybersecurity but also equipping more women with cybersecurity technical skills and putting that skill to work through its programs, such as the Acyberschool Bug Bounty program, where hackers report vulnerabilities to Cyber School for response disclosure, and the 1-year fellowship that places skilled cybersecurity technicians in diverse SMEs to improve their posture from 0-1, 2 that show organisations exactly what a person does in an organisation and why it’s important,” highlighted Oloo.
In addition to honouring women in cybersecurity, Acyberschool aims to empower more women with technical cybersecurity skills .
“Through the continued support from the Africa Cybersecurity and AI Foundation (ACAIF), Acyberschool will continue to innovate in the space to create opportunities in the digital economy in emerging technology, including AI, through the trend of the AI app platform that connects creators to SMEs in tech to amplify their businesses on social media while ensuring they are secure.” Oloo clarified
Dr. Almaz Yohannis, a tech lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Informatics, says over the past few years, the number of women enrolling for tech-based careers has increased from 25 to about 35 but feels more needs to be done through sensitisation.
“Generally, when we started training tech-based courses, not only in cybersecurity but also in ICT and cybersecurity, the number of women undertaking tech-based careers was at 20%, but I think after sensitisation we are now at around 35%, and still we believe if we keep talking to them, we will get higher numbers.”
Unlike last year’s nominees, this time round, the majority of the nominated women were young and from diverse fields in the Cybertech .
The 2025 edition of the Top 100 Women in Cybersecurity nominees include Kenyans Marrianne Kemunto the acting ICT manager at Kisii University,Evalyn Oloo, CEO acyberschool, Esther Adwets, Cynthia Oginga, Mary Kombo, Mary Immaculate, Doreen Tiema, Sandra Mukiri, Purity Muiruri, Jacquiline Madara, Goelle Koanda from Burkina Faso and Yenalaba Kignaman of Ivory coast, just to mention a few.
