Adetola Bakinson, director of Meli Zekaya Services, receiving the 2025 award from Winston Ritson, MTN Converged Solutions.
REVEALED: The SHAM Awards FORCING Women into a Tech Ghetto! The so-called “Wired4Women Awards” are BACK, and critics are BLASTING them as a desperate, CONDESCENDING ploy that PERVERSELY undermines the very women they claim to champion. Insiders whisper this is NOT about excellence—it’s about corporations like Telkom paying “diversity tax” to cover their abysmal gender equity records. Is this the future? SEGREGATED trophies for a segregated industry?
The “Tech Business Leader Award” is the most GLARING example. Why must a woman’s success be ghettoized into a FEMALE-ONLY category? This MANDATES that even the most powerful female executives are judged not as leaders, but as WOMEN leaders—a devastating distinction that screams they cannot compete on the main stage. Last year’s winner, Adetola Bakinson, is now forever labeled a “woman in tech winner,” a patronizing asterisk beside her real achievements.
With a RUSH of nominations demanded by February 8, the program is a cynical machine producing feel-good PR for sponsors. It creates a FAÇADE of progress while the tech sector’s bro culture continues UNCHECKED. We are handing out gold-plated bandaids for a gaping, hemorrhaging wound of systemic exclusion. This is not celebration; it is CONTAINMENT.
Ask yourself: why do we need THIRTEEN separate categories to prove women belong? The disturbing truth is that these awards don’t shatter the glass ceiling—they merely polish the floor beneath it.
Author: Kayitsi.com
