In Ghana, Ivy Barley is a household name in the fields of technology and STEM. She has mentored a good number of women in technology and still continues to do so through various initiatives. Barley is currently employed by Microsoft as a Technical Program Manager on the Open Education Analytics (OEA) team, an open-source initiative that interacts with educational systems throughout the world to build contemporary data intelligence capabilities.
At the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Barley earned a bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science. She went on to get a master’s degree (MPhil.) in Mathematical Statistics from the same university, which she completed in 2017.
She used to gather the children in her neighborhood to teach them Science and Mathematics for free when she was younger. She started developers in vogue as a long-term project that would provide the ideal environment for girls to code, interact, and cooperate in 2017.
Barley has a long list of experiences to boast of but a few include; working as a Teaching Assistant at the African Science Academy in Ghana, where she assisted with Regression Analysis, Mathematical Statistics, Statistical Methods for Process Improvement, and Biostatistics. She also worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where he assisted with Regression Analysis, Mathematical Statistics, Statistical Methods for Process Improvement, and Biostatistics in the department of Mathematics. She worked as Digital Skills and Education Consultant at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. There, she worked in a program where the German government helped young women and girls build or enhance their abilities in ICT-related industries.
Ivy Barley, Achievements
Ivy Barley was named most Influential Young Ghanaian in Science and Technology in December of 2019. She was also named as one of the top 50 most influential Ghanaians in the same year. This is to name a few of her impressive list of achievements. In 2021, she was the Microsoft Global Hackathon 2021 Challenge Winner and also won the Tech Entrepreneur Award Winner – Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) Award that same year.
Social media is key to Barley as she uses her social media, her blog, and her newsletter, to share stories and promote women in technology. She hosts live audio conversations dubbed #SpaceswithIvy on Twitter, where she invites speakers to share their experiences, ideas, resources, and opportunities in the IT business via Twitter Spaces. She started her 100 days of coding programme in January 2022 to teach coding for free to anyone interested on Twitter space as well.
According to Barley on the future of coding for girls in Africa, she quotes, “Coding and generally technology has so much untapped potential in Africa. For females, the future is even brighter. Day in and day out there are so many opportunities that come up to promote women in technology.”
The road to technological advancement may take a while in Africa but with people like Ivy Barley, the future is definitely bright.