Ivy Barley

Ivy Barley is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, program manager and women in tech activist. She is the co-founder of Developers in Vogue,[1] an organization that is paving the way for more African women to take up opportunities in the tech industry. In January 2022, GhanaWeb featured Barley as one of the 3 Ghanaian ‘Women in Tech’ making strides on the international corporate scene.[2] In 2017 and 2019, Barley was listed as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Young Ghanaians by Avance Media.[3]

Ivy Barley
Ivy at the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Washington
NationalityGhanaian
EducationKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (MPhil., BSc.), Aburi Girls' Senior High School

Early life and education

Barley was born in Accra, Ghana, where she spent most of her childhood. She had her secondary education at Aburi Girls Senior High School, after which she pursued a bachelor's degree in Actuarial Science at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. After her first degree, she obtained a master's degree (MPhil.) in Mathematical Statistics at the same university and graduated in 2017.[4]

Career

Barley currently works as a Technical Program Manager on the Open Education Analytics (OEA) team at Microsoft,[5][6][7][8][9] which is an open source program which collaborates with education systems across the world to develop modern data intelligence capabilities. OEA is a fully open-sourced data integration and analytics framework for the education sector built on Azure Synapse – with Azure Data Lake Storage as the storage backbone, Azure Active Directory providing role-based access control, and Azure Purview for data discovery and governance.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 2020, Barley started and scaled Developers in Vogue as the CEO. Due to her passion for supporting African women in tech, she has worked as a Digital Skills and Education Consultant[10] at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), where she was in charge of the overall design, organization and implementation of digital skills projects like the training of women in the informal sector of Ghana to help them use technology to boost their businesses and increase their productivity using digital tools [11][12] and the eSkills4Girls initiative to promote careers in technology among African women and girls. In December 2018, re:publica came to Africa for the very first time, and she was in charge of designing, implementing and coordinating various women in tech projects on behalf of GIZ during re:publica Accra.[13]

Barley was part of the Global Shaper Community in Accra, which is one of the multi-stakeholder groups in the World Economic Forum between 2017 and 2019 and a Yunus and Youth Fellow.[14] She also worked as a Teaching Assistant in Mathematics, Statistics, Physics and Computer Programming at the African Science Academy in Ghana and a Research and Teaching Assistant at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where she assisted with Regression Analysis, Mathematical Statistics, Statistical Methods for Process Improvement and Biostatistics.

Social entrepreneur

Barley is the co-founder of Developers in Vogue, an organization that provides training, mentorship and job placement for African women in tech. The impact of Developers in Vogue has been recognized on international platforms including the IFC Sustainability Exchange: Invest for Tomorrow,[15] the Women20 Summit in Berlin, Germany that had Chancellor Angela Merkel[16] in attendance and the ITU International Girls in ICT Day.[17]

Ivy's impact at Developers in Vogue[18][19] has also been featured in various media platforms and books including the Women in Tech book by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development[20][21] to encourage more women and girls to be involved in STEM and the Founding Women[22][23] book to highlight African women who are defying the odds to build successful businesses in tech.

Impact on Digital Platforms

Barley uses her digital platforms, especially social media, her blog and newsletter to share tech and career experiences and advocate for women in tech. On Twitter, she hosts live audio conversations via Twitter Spaces called #SpaceswithIvy where she brings in speakers to share their experiences, insights, resources and opportunities in the tech industry. In January 2022, Barley announced the #100DaysChallenge for the tech community in Africa to learn new tech skills and openly share their journey on Twitter. People are learning UI/UX design, data engineering, product management, technical writing, and software development among others in 100 days.[24]

Awards and recognition
  • Dec 2021 | Microsoft Global Hackathon 2021 Challenge Winner[25]
  • Nov 2021 | Tech Entrepreneur Award Winner - Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) Award[26]
  • Mar 2020 | She For Social Impact Awards[27]
  • Dec 2019 | Most Influential Young Ghanaian in Science and Technology[28]
  • Dec 2019 | Top 50 Most Influential Young Ghanaians[28]
  • Nov 2019 | F-LANE Finalist by the Vodafone Institute of Society and Communications[29]
  • Nov 2017 | Kwese GoGettaz Competition Finalist[30]
  • Apr 2017 | Winner, eSkills4Girls competition in Berlin, Germany[16]

References
  1. "Spotlight on African Women in Tech: Ivy Barley". BORGEN. 18 March 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  2. "Ghanaian 'Women in Tech' making strides on the international corporate scene". GhanaWeb. 11 January 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  3. Online, Peace FM. "50 Most Influential Young Ghanaians 2017 Revealed!". www.peacefmonline.com. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
  4. "Ivy Barley | WSA". www.worldsummitawards.org. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  5. Crabbe, Nathaniel (10 March 2020). "Ivy Barley: Ghanaian digital entrepreneur joins Microsoft as progamme manager". Yen.com.gh - Ghana news. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  6. Entsie, Berlinda (10 March 2020). "Microsoft appoints Ghanaian digital entrepreneur, Ivy Barley as program manager". Pulse Ghana. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  7. webmanager (11 March 2020). "Ghanaian digital entrepreneur Ivy Barley joins Microsoft". Business World Ghana. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  8. "Self-taught Ghanaian coder, Ivy Barley joins Microsoft as manager". Face2Face Africa. 11 March 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  9. "Ghana's digital entrepreneur Ivy Barley joins Microsoft". Ghanaian Museum. 10 March 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  10. giz. "Digital skills for entrepreneurial women". www.giz.de. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  11. giz. "Neue Branchen, neue Chancen: Frauen erobern die Digitalwirtschaft". www.giz.de (in German). Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  12. Amt, Auswärtiges. "Digital skills for entrepreneurial women". germanyinafrica.diplo.de. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  13. Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Re:publica digital conference premieres in Africa | DW | 14.12.2018". DW.COM. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  14. "Ivy Barley". Yunus&Youth. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  15. "2019 IFC Sustainability Exchange: Invest for Tomorrow". World Bank Live. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  16. "Young Ghanaian, Ivy Barley Wins E-Skills for Girls Competition In Berlin, Germany".
  17. "International Girls in ICT Day 2018". ITU. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  18. "Ivy Barley". www.tea-after-twelve.com (in German). Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  19. "Impact Report 2017–2019, Make-IT in Africa" (PDF).
  20. Development (BMZ), Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and. "BMZ publication: Women in Tech – Inspiration, no fairytales | G20 #eSkills4Girls initiative - Challenging the gender digital divide". Retrieved 27 January 2022.
  21. "Women in Tech, Inspiration, Keine Marchen" (PDF).
  22. Ball, Eunice Baguma (26 September 2023). Founding Women Book. Africa Technology Business Network. ISBN 978-1999968908.
  23. "What Does a Tech Entrepreneur Look Like?". Movemeback Community. 4 August 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  24. Djentuh, Sedi (25 January 2022). "The domino effect of Ivy Barley". Sedi's Open File. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  25. "Microsoft Global Hackathon 2021 Challenge Winner was issued by The Microsoft Garage to Ivy Barley". Credly. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  26. "2021 AWIEF AWARD WINNERS". AWIEF. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  27. "The She For Social Impact Awards – Honoring Impact-led Women". She For Social Impact Awards (in German). Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  28. "Avance Media | Profiles: Avance Media 2019 50 Most Influential Young Ghanaians". Retrieved 2 February 2022.
  29. "Developers in Vogue – Tech-Bootcamps for Women in Africa". Vodafone Institute. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  30. tubei, george (25 January 2018). "Ivy Barley's quest to get girls coding and employed is off to a fast start". Business Insider Africa. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
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