When Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative (BBYDI) opened applications for the first cohort of its SheBuilds AI Fellowship in Kaduna State, the organisation expected strong interest. What followed demonstrated just how significant the demand had become.
A total of 473 young women applied for only 20 available places.
Behind those numbers was a bigger story. Young Nigerian women want to participate in the technologies transforming the global economy, but access to technical knowledge, mentorship, professional networks and opportunities to build with emerging technologies remains deeply unequal.
For BBYDI, this presented an opportunity to go beyond artificial intelligence.
As part of its growing commitment to ensuring that women are not excluded from the next generation of digital technologies, BBYDI incorporated blockchain and decentralised technologies into its emerging-technology learning pathway for young women, exposing participants to the foundations of blockchain, Web3 and their practical applications.
The objective was straightforward: women should not merely consume the technologies shaping Africa’s future; they should understand, influence and build with them.
Taking Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency
One of the first barriers BBYDI sought to address was perception.
For many young people encountering blockchain for the first time, the technology is synonymous with cryptocurrency and digital asset trading. BBYDI’s approach deliberately moved the conversation beyond speculation.
Participants were introduced to blockchain as an infrastructure for solving problems around trust, ownership, verification and transparency.
Through practical learning sessions, young women explored concepts including decentralised systems, smart contracts, digital identity, verifiable credentials and transparent digital records. They also examined how blockchain applications are emerging across sectors such as education, financial services, entrepreneurship and governance.
The sessions encouraged participants to move from asking, “How can I use blockchain?” to asking, “What problem can I solve with blockchain?”
That shift was central to BBYDI’s approach.
From Technology Consumers to Technology Builders
The blockchain component was designed around a challenge BBYDI has repeatedly encountered in its work with women and girls: access to technology does not automatically translate into participation in the technology economy.
A woman may own a smartphone, use digital financial services and interact with AI-powered products every day while remaining almost entirely absent from the teams designing, developing and governing those technologies.
BBYDI wants to change that equation.
By introducing young women to blockchain and other emerging technologies within a structured learning environment, the organisation created an entry point for participants who might otherwise have considered the sector inaccessible or too technical.
The initiative combined technical exposure with conversations around real-world applications, responsible technology, entrepreneurship and potential career pathways.
For participants, therefore, blockchain was presented not simply as another digital skill to add to a CV, but as a technology they could potentially build careers, products and enterprises around.
Connecting Skills to Economic Opportunity
BBYDI also recognises that training alone will not close the gender gap in emerging technology.
Young women need access to the ecosystem surrounding the technology: developers, mentors, employers, founders, investors and organisations willing to give emerging talent an opportunity.
This informed the programme’s emphasis on connecting technical learning with mentorship, professional development and pathways towards entrepreneurship and employment.
The longer-term goal is economic agency.
A young woman who understands how decentralised technologies work should be able to see herself not only as a learner but as a potential blockchain developer, product designer, researcher, founder, community builder or entrepreneur.
That possibility matters in a country where emerging digital sectors could create new categories of work and enterprise over the coming decade.
Ensuring Women Are Present From the Beginning
There is also a lesson from previous technological transitions that BBYDI does not want Africa to repeat.
When access to knowledge, capital and networks is unequal at the beginning of a technological shift, those inequalities can become embedded in the industries that eventually emerge.
Waiting until blockchain technologies become mainstream before addressing women’s participation risks creating another technology ecosystem in which women must spend years trying to catch up.
The extraordinary demand for SheBuilds AI — 473 applications competing for just 20 places — provided BBYDI with evidence that the problem is not a lack of interest among young women. The challenge is creating enough accessible pathways for them to learn, experiment and build.
BBYDI’s work at the intersection of gender and emerging technology is therefore increasingly focused on ensuring that women have those opportunities early.
The organisation sees blockchain as part of that journey: not as cryptocurrency speculation and not as technology for technology’s sake, but as infrastructure that young African women should have the knowledge and opportunity to shape.
For BBYDI, the ambition is clear.
When Africa’s blockchain economy is being built, women should not be watching from the sidelines. They should be among its builders, innovators and leaders.
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