Tech, Gender Pay Gap & the Sun
That’s a pretty [redacted] fast week flew by.
Hi guys!
This week wasn’t as bloody as last week even though, in New Zealand on Friday, there was a terrorist attack in a Mosque in Christchurch—a rather unfortunate event that revealed just how real and deadly right-wing terrorism is in many Western countries. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased
Thoughts
I thought about a lot of things this week: from free speech to Game of Thrones to outrage culture and the role technology plays in some of these things.
It’s no secret that with the terrorist attack in Christchurch, the terrorist streamed his attack on Facebook, and Facebook didn’t know. In the #AccentChallenge that went viral on the internet yesterday, Twitter users were required to reveal their name, username and place of origin. It’s interesting how much of ourselves we reveal online, how much of this constitutes personal data collated by corporations for their use without our consents.
I finished my course on Ethics and Law in Data and Analytics, a course sponsored by Microsoft (Yay Me!) and while I learned so much about big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, I have become very weary about data, and how in Nigeria there does not seem to be much thought for it in terms of privacy legislation and protection.
This week, I started to write about walking, and how Murakami also likes to run/walk. I’m going on my first hiking experience soon, and I hope that I can link up both experiences.
Here’s how the essay starts:
Interesting Stories
I read an essay about how tailoring new medicines to men or women would be revolutionary, considering that it took many years for women to get included in pain research. I didn't know this. I also didn’t know this stat—only 7% of women negotiate their starting salary compared to 57% of men. I’ve always known though, that unequal pay was/is a real gender problem.
Tonight at Paystack’s Diverse Roles in Tech - a Tech Women Lagos Panel Discussion, Odunayo Eweniyi, Co-founder/COO Piggyvest said women need to be more confident in their salary demands as we have been conditioned to ask for less. Another important lesson from that panel discussion is that, we’ll always need a support system:
“Some of the comfort I get from doing the things I do is that if I fall, someone will catch me.” - Khadijah Abu, Product Partnerships Lead, Paystack.
It was an important reminder that I am surrounded by love.
Remembering women who did ordinarily unforgettable things, and women running for president in the United States of America is some proof that change is coming.
Plastics are causing waste pollution all over the world. Apparently, even recycling can’t save us. The plastic we dispose usually ends up polluting water bodies and pieces of it goes in the fish we end up eating. Burning plastic in open air, leads to environmental pollution due to the release of poisonous chemicals. The polluted air when inhaled by humans and animals affects our health and can cause respiratory problems.
What will you start doing to help keep our planet safe and healthier?
Meanwhile, Lagos is so uncomfortably hot. 10 am feels like an oven with spicy chicken in it. I haven’t thought about it enough, but it seems that we are facing extremes in terms of weather. Global warming? Maybe. This is something I’ll be thinking about this weekend.
Since I promised to be keep it short, here’s one last thing to think about: Gabriel García Márquez’s life stands as a testament to the fact that “purpose” is not something you are born with but something you find and cultivate, something that reveals itself when you let your life speak. Do you agree?