Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has empowered young women with practical skills in digital literacy, data analysis, artificial intelligence, data science and Python programming as part of efforts to strengthen female participation in technology and innovation.

The training, which covered three days, exposed participants to essential computer skills, Microsoft Excel, data handling, programming and introductory machine learning, among other areas.

The initiative is in line with ABU’s broader efforts to promote women’s participation in ICT and emerging technologies. The university’s Iya Abubakar Institute of ICT, for instance, provides ICT skills training and specifically identifies equal participation of girls and women in ICT as one of its objectives.

At the opening ceremony, the Programme Coordinator explained the objectives of the programme and outlined the skills and opportunities available to participants throughout the training.

The Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, ABU Zaria, lauded the initiative and encouraged the participants to take full advantage of the opportunity to develop their technical and professional capabilities.

The Head of the Department of Computer Engineering also urged the participants to remain focused and persistent, drawing from her experience as a female engineer to demonstrate the opportunities available to women in engineering and technology.

On the first day, participants were introduced to computer fundamentals, digital literacy, hardware and software, file and folder management, internet safety and responsible technology use.

They also learned the fundamentals of data, Microsoft Excel, artificial intelligence, data science and machine learning.

The practical sessions enabled participants to identify computer components, organise digital files, enter data into spreadsheets and understand basic spreadsheet structures.

The second day focused on practical data analysis using Microsoft Excel and the fundamentals of Python programming.

Participants learned data formatting, sorting and filtering, basic Excel formulas, including SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN and MAX, as well as data visualisation through bar, column and pie charts.

They applied the skills to real-life exercises involving school attendance, personal budgeting and survey data.

The Python component introduced participants to programming environments, the print and input functions, variables and basic data types, including integers, floats, strings and Boolean values.

The third day advanced the participants’ Python skills through lessons on arithmetic operators, conditional statements and loops.

They also developed simple projects, including a calculator, student grading programme and guessing game, designed to strengthen their understanding of programming and problem-solving.

The training subsequently introduced the participants to Pandas and the use of Python for handling structured and tabular data, providing an initial foundation for more advanced data science and machine learning applications.