African Business Stories
African Business Stories is the go-to podcast for insights into the women shaping Africa’s business landscape. Africa is one of the world’s most promising frontiers for growth and innovation—and women are at the heart of this transformation.
Hosted by Akaego Okoye, this podcast spotlights female entrepreneurs who are breaking barriers, scaling businesses, and driving economic development across the continent. Through bold conversations, we explore funding, scaling strategies, digital transformation, and industry innovations—equipping you with insights, practical tools, and inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey.
When women win, economies thrive. These stories amplify success, challenge narratives, and create a blueprint for the next generation of female leaders in Africa and beyond.
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African Business Stories
Agang Ditlhogo: Co-Founder the Clicking Generation - Training and Mentoring the Innovators of Tomorrow
Have you ever wondered how childhood curiosity can shape a career in tech entrepreneurship? Our latest episode features Ahang Ditoho, co-founder of the Clicking Generation, whose journey from a curious young girl in Botswana to a trailblazing tech entrepreneur will leave you inspired. Ahang shares her story of leveraging Botswana's diamond-funded education system to pursue her passion for engineering and computers, ultimately founding a social enterprise that empowers underserved children through digital skills training.
Join us as Ahang discusses the pivotal role of funding and mentorship programs like the Mandela Washington Fellowship and the Tony Elumelu Foundation, as well as partnerships with giants like SAP and Google, in propelling her business forward. Explore the strategic shift to corporate training during the COVID-19 pandemic and dive into the advocacy initiatives that promote STEM education for girls. Finally, get an inside look at the Clicking Generation’s aspirations for the future and Ahang's heartfelt advice to fellow African women entrepreneurs on finding joy and validation in their journey. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in social impact, STEM, and the resilience of women in business.
Agang holds a bachelor’s in computer information systems from the University of Botswana and a masters in data science and AI from the European Business University. She is a Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur 2016, Mandela Washington Fellow 2016, Atlas Corps Fellow in 2018, Futurelect Fellow 2022 and a Presidential Precinct, Corporate Leaders Program Fellow 2024.
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Hi there and welcome to another episode of African Business Stories. Africa is the only region in the world where more women than men choose to be entrepreneurs. What this says to me is that the story of business in Africa is the story of the African business woman. So we are on a journey of discovery to find these women and tell their stories. So we're on a journey of discovery to find these women and tell their stories. On the show, we will hear from female innovators and entrepreneurs building and running businesses in Africa. They will share the highs and lows of their entrepreneurial journey and lessons learned along the way. Some of these women you may know, and many you may not, but I assure you that all their stories are inspiring in their own right. My hope is that these stories will inspire you to reach for your dreams and leave a legacy for generations to come. It makes such a big difference to us if you can rate, review and share our episodes. You can do this mainly on Apple Podcasts, and you can find us on all podcast platforms If you're in Africa. Spotify is now available, so check us out there and don't forget to rate, review and share.
Speaker 1:On this week's episode, I chat with Ahang Ditoho, co-founder of the Clicking Generation, a social impact digital skills training company in Botswana. We discuss how her childhood curiosity led her into a career in computer systems and how a passion project to share knowledge in STEM with young people transformed into a company that offers ICT training and develops mentoring plans for target groups, especially for girls, to encourage involvement in science and engineering. We also discuss funding, having to pivot to staying business and what growth looks like. Thank you to the team at Presidential Precinct for making the introduction and for the work they do to empower African entrepreneurs. Let's get into it. Good morning Ahang. Welcome to African Business Stories.
Speaker 1:Hello, hi Thank you so much for having me, so good to have you. You know, one of the goals of the podcast is to interview at least one female founder from every single African country the 54 African countries and we're working our way through that. Some countries have had more people than others, but you are my first guest from Botswana, so I'm super, super excited about that. So welcome again. Just before we get into your story, I just wondered being from Botswana some of our listeners may not know anything about Botswana what are two things you would love to share about your country?
Speaker 2:So Botswana is in Southern Africa. If you think of South Africa, we are just north of South Africa. It's a small country with a small population of about 2.5 million people. Country with a small population of about 2.5 million people. We are known for the Kalahari desert. We are known for our safari, we are known for the Okavango delta. So Botswana is a really beautiful, beautiful place with warm-hearted people, and one thing that really identifies Botswana is the diamonds that come from the soil. We've mined diamonds. We've mined diamonds for decades, and it is the very way in which Botswana has gained wealth. Botswana has supported its citizens, whether it's healthcare, whether it's education. So, yeah, I come from a very rich nation with warm-hearted people and beautiful landscape.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that. So I did hear that education for Botswanans is free as a result of the diamonds that the country mines and sells. Is that still the case today?
Speaker 2:And some of us are testimonialists, so I'm from preschool, you know the education has reached primary, secondary school, tertiary school, even post grads. The government is able to sponsor the learners through, and another amazing thing is that they are able to send even some of them outside the country. So I and many others had testimony of that. How, then, our agriculture, our tourism sector, our diamonds, have really sustained our nation?
Speaker 1:and provided for us. That's truly amazing, because in a lot of African countries people are thinking will I be able to go to university, can I afford to go to school? But then, you know, botswana is an example of how you can use the wealth of your nation to educate your people, and it's been like that across multiple administrations. So that's a testament of good leadership. So, coming to university, you know you did your first degree in Botswana. How did you come to decide what to study when it was time to go to university?
Speaker 2:So from a very young age I had always been I don't know fascinated, but I didn't know it was called engineering or science. I just knew that I was fascinated with how things were together. I would look at the radio and think, think, how do they put it together? So I would get a screwdriver hide away and then just open it up and see. So I would see these cables, I would see all these technical, very technical things that I don't understand. Put it back together and put it back.
Speaker 2:And then parents were like this remote today, the remote control, maybe for the team deep down I would know that I had opened it previously, so it was just me exploring. And eventually I found out that there was this thing called engineering. Okay, engineering, and for you to do engineering, you should be good in mathematics, you should be good in your sciences. So I was really intentional about just working hard towards. And then when I was 17 years old, um, just when I was 16, when I was about to graduate from senior school and we were introduced to computer, they called it computer studies, where we would just go into the computer lab and explore the computer. That was my fascination with computers and I was like how do I get to know how to use this thing? Fast forward then I ended up doing computer systems, so it was a fascination that grew out of curiosity and eventually led me to my academic path.
Speaker 1:Right, that's fantastic. So what was your initial career like after you finished your first degree?
Speaker 2:to become a technician. The technician would offer user support through the information technology department. So I've been a systems analyst. I've worked with the help desk computer systems, help desk, csc, and I had really enjoyed these roles. I enjoyed them and I worked for the University of Botswana for two to six years. I was with yeah on a technical role.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I know that your co-founder was your roommate. I read that somewhere was your your roommate or your friend from university. So at what point did you guys start exploring the idea um of starting a business?
Speaker 2:we did not set off to say we are setting an organization or a business. Um, it started off as a thing. Um, I am, I'm in these classes, these computer science classes. There's emails around us uh, very few. Some dropped out and changed to other faculties. Some didn't end up finishing completing on time. Some modules were completely repeated multiple times by our female colleagues and just looking around the classroom, the thought was how do we then help young people to appreciate that there's this thing called social science, there's this thing called STEM, and there's very little of us in it.
Speaker 2:So the Clicking Generation started as a passion project. We had decided you know what, let's try mentor, let's do our free time, let's go to these schools and talk to the girls, give testimony. It was never, ever about digital skills training. No, and then eventually things started. It was just got too much. And then people are saying are you operating as a legal entity? And remember, these are two techies. We don't know anything. We don't know anything about company registration, we know very little about how then we put this thing in place. How do you then just run an enterprise, a business, an organization? So we had to live. So the second generation was really best out of a passion of just trying good, out of um, out of the knowledge that we had gotten, and looking around us and trying to fill the gap of um. Very few girls and I I love that.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of passion projects that grew on to become impactful businesses. So you start off just doing mentoring as a passion project and then you eventually come and register a business. What year are we in at this point when you finally regularize and become a proper legal entity? So we had I graduated 2010,.
Speaker 2:So we had done this 2011-2012. By 2013, we were fully operational. So we, after our registration, there was a competition that was open, a startup competition, and we applied and were successful in this. So this funded our initial beginnings, like the humble beginning of getting our first 10 computers, getting the curriculum started because, like I was saying, we were just trying, but then everything needed to be in place. We needed to have a curriculum, we needed to have ages like how do we categorize what is an intermediate learner? Who is an advanced learner? How do we then cater for all of these? But we have never, ever forgotten the core mandate, which was to reach the ahangs. So the ahangs of this generation can be found in rural areas and remote areas where we live. So we, the chicken generation, as much as we are, we have offices in cities. We are operating currently out of the Mawung area in the northwest. We always remember them and we always go back, and I'm very intentional about remote learning. So this is how we came about. From 2013 to date are the second generation grown from strength to strength? By cosplays and we've, you know, we've across hodana.
Speaker 2:Thousands of kids have been trained uh, trained on coding, introduction to different ways of learning. Um, you know, when we talk about you know coding are block. So we try to really demystify to our learners that it's not difficult. You just have to learn how to build things and bring them together. We have run checker phones. Some of our intermediate learners are building apps right now. We have a whole range. And one thing, because of just something of my recent studies we are even looking into AI ethics. How do we introduce them from a young age to be ethical and then correct with the computer on the internet? How to become irresponsible citizens? How to contribute by being innovative, creating all these apps, but remembering the humanity behind it.
Speaker 1:What was the thinking behind the name?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the name, the Clicking Generation. I don't remember how exactly it came about, but in my head it was always about the clicking, the clicking. How are we transforming this generation? And then so the name came about and, as I had it, it was very colorful, it was very loud, it was very out there. And I then thought, if you go and look at our logo, you'll see that it is very colorful, it is very loud, it is out there. And that's how the name came about. How are we birthing the next generation of innovators? How are we birthing the next generation of clickers who are going to be creators of, you know, these kids who are going to be creators of innovative products to solve our immediate?
Speaker 1:struggles. So earlier on in the conversation you spoke about how your goal is to reach the Ahang people. Can you talk a little bit more about these people? And you know, just for our listeners who don't know what that is?
Speaker 2:The Ahangs are people like myself, people who grew up in hopeless situations, people who didn't have encouragement, people who were just going to school. People who didn't have encouragement, people who were just going to school for the sake of going to school. These are the little girls who are destined to change our story altogether. And these are the ahangs people like myself back then who didn't understand where they were going. So I always look back at the younger me and say how do I speak in a language that they understand? How do I relate my story so that they can see themselves in me? Because I definitely see myself in them. So that is just the whole movement of. It's a personal project. It's just birthing Akhangs and I hope they become better akhangs and yeah, so that is just the the drive. When it gets tough, it's just like reflecting that this is bigger, it's bigger.
Speaker 2:This is so beautiful because akhang is your name. Yes, akhang is my name and in my native. So there's this saying. I'll translate it. It says so. It means literally your name, your curse. So the name Ahang means to build, wow, literally, to build Brick by brick by brick. So Ahang, so this name for me has been not not a curse, but a blessing in that I'm obliged, I have to build, even if you know that days when I said I'm like, why am I even doing this? And then it's like you're here to build, so let's go. So it's, it's just that, just building brick, uh, destiny, another brick, encouragement, another brick. So that's just, uh, who I believe I am meant to be anyway, that is that is so beautiful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for for sharing that, in terms of starting the business. You've spoken about how you were two techies who um stumbled upon this passion project and it then went on to become a business. Are there some practical things that you did to close the knowledge gap as you stepped into entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely so. It was quite intimidating at first. As you can imagine. We are these two techies, we are all all technical, we are all about the computer and there were some certain real life gaps that existed. For example, we knew very little about finances, we knew very little about bookkeeping how do you you know such things and as monitoring and evaluation, impact measuring all these things, and we had to take like practical efforts. We had to go on and train, get financial training, understand what tax no, not individual tax only, but how this business is going to translate, how we are going to pay tax, how are we going to keep our books and all these things. And these were the practical training that we had to be very intentional about pursuing.
Speaker 2:We've also been very blessed and fortunate to be part of, you know, regional and continental programs. I can mention a few as a Mandela Washington fellow. We are given with tools. You know you go through this intense program where you are given tools to just measure what you are doing, the impact that you are doing. So those have been very helpful. In 2016, I went through the Tony Elumelu Foundation program as well. There have been several and they have been really helpful program as well. There have been several and they've been really helpful. Locally as well, we have the local enterprise authority which offers free training.
Speaker 1:So we've been part of that as well in the past. So, coming back to funding, talk us through how you have managed to fund this social enterprise over the years, and are there any innovative things that you and your co-founder have had to do to grow the business in this 10, 11 years that you've been running?
Speaker 2:so the clicking generation has a very unique model. So we have this social enterprise that is, you know, impact based. We are trying to go out to these kids, we are going out to these learners who don't really have direct means to pay for these services. So in the past we've partnered with organizations. We've partnered with international donors, local donors. We've partnered with corporates from outside and locally as well. For example, in the past we've had donations, support from companies like SAP. It ended, but it's like Africa Code Week, which was one of the biggest festivals for coding across the country.
Speaker 2:We've had the Google Small Grants. We've been funded as well through the US Embassy, because the privilege of being a former fellow through their programs is that you get an opportunity to apply for this funding. And another model that we found really useful has been that the business arm of the clicking generation does corporate training. So we go out to corporates. We train them on relevant, you know, depending on their needs and the gaps that exist, we train them on relevant, you know, depending on their needs and the gaps that exist, we train them on it's a cyber security. We introduced efficient tools to run their businesses, to run their teams, and that's how then.
Speaker 1:This then trickles down back to the clicker generation fantastic and I know that you do some advocacy work on behalf of women and girls in STEM. Can you talk to us a bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yes. So recently there's been sort of like a commission and a research that I was reading from the Camden Trust that based in Ireland. So the Camden Trust brought up numbers that post-COVID they didn't specify the exact number, but over a million girls did not go back to school and this was across Africa. These girls couldn't go back to school because some of them, you know, they had to go back to the farms, they had to go back to different areas. Some of them unfortunately fell pregnant and it was just. It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:So I reflected and looked at our past projects. One is Girls for ICT. Girls in ICT is a program through the ITU which member countries partake in. So we've been part of Girls in ICT just to encourage girls to say, you know, stem is here, stem is here to stay. You should as well, you know, contribute to STEM. You should don't be intimidated by mathematics or science. There's also this program through GIZ. Giz is the German embassy initiative which just talks to e-skills for girls. So for years we've been part of e-skills for, where we are just deliberately targeting girls to say, just like myself, you know, go out there. You know, be fearless and pursue. And we are not, by the way. We are not saying they should go into computer science or related. We are just saying there's so much opportunities If they're destined to be whatever they're destined to be. This is just one enabling tool that we use to encourage them. So that's our voice and advocacy and encouraging these young girls.
Speaker 1:Coming out of COVID was very challenging for a lot of businesses, especially on the continent, and it felt like 2022 was probably worse than you know 2020 or 2021 for a lot of businesses and just how people have had to pivot and try new things to stay afloat and to keep their businesses going. I noticed that you started doing corporate training and I wonder was that an attempt to pivot? How did you get into corporate training and what has that been like for Clicking Generation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we saw the gap, especially after COVID. You know, everybody was going online and our main customers, the kids in these remote areas, didn't have internet or connectivity to enjoy the services that we offer, so naturally we didn't even think too much about it. It was just this natural transition and seeing this gap that exists, and then we jumped on it and the people that we approached and we worked with so they needed these services. So that has been one aspect that really has worked for us as well. Recently we've worked within governance as well. We've been training on digital tools for campaigning. This is a recent project that is still ongoing. So that is part of that's how we get our funding, that's how we train all these aspects, because, remember, ict tech is all over, like it's in governance, it's in's in finance, it's everywhere. So that has really been a pivot that we see you're already seeing the fruit of that's what running a business is like, isn't it?
Speaker 1:you know you keep your passion inside, but you, you do what you need to do to keep the the lights on. So I just wonder over the next five years, what does growth look like for the clicking generation?
Speaker 2:so the next five years for the, does growth look like for the clicking generation? So the next five years for the clicking generation, by God's grace we are hoping to have reached the corners of Botswana, to have gone to these remote areas, many of them, to have found partners that not only believe in our vision but are patient within the work that we do and to just keep on and just holding on. So, yeah, possibly I don't know five years might look like maybe growing out of Botswana and going outside the borders of Botswana, but really, really want to go to all the corners of Botswana, but really really want to go to all the corners of Botswana and just raise a movement, a movement of young, innovative, skilled, young people who are going to transform our continent.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of wrapping up, when I come to wrap up, I ask my guests two questions for a reflection and for advice. Reflection I wonder what you would say. I mean, you are building brick by brick, a very impactful business, so all you do is about impact. But if you could reflect on one thing that you were most proud of as you have built the, the clicking generation, what would that be?
Speaker 2:That's a tough one, but you know, always when we get these grants, we get the support.
Speaker 2:there's always a part in the report where you need to measure impact, where you need to draw all these fancy graphs and talk about how many people have you impacted. But for me, it's always difficult to reflect on the impact that was felt. Sometimes it's about how, you know, a little girl touches her mouse for the first time. It's like the twinkle in the eye, and then there's just this little boy who's just pulling things apart, just like whether it's a CPU, and you're like how do I measure such a thing? So for me, in reflection, the journey has been fulfilling. It has been just, I don't know, I can't even express it in words.
Speaker 2:So, in reflection, when I get back to my why it's all these small things that you can't really measure and put in words or put in a graph, but just in my heart, I'm just like this is the reason why I do what I do. So, yeah, so it's really, it's encouraging. It encourages me as well, um, when, because, like we talked about the, you know, running an enterprise, running an organization, it's not always easy and these are the things that are validating and yeah, and then you sit and reflect and say, you know, um, god is good in terms of just giving you the peace of knowing that you are in the right journey, even when it seems like it's not. You are not, yeah, so yeah, it makes me feel good enough many days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in terms of advice, what advice would you give to other women who are building businesses across Africa?
Speaker 2:It's not always easy, but just stay the course. Just always look back to why you are doing what you are doing. You are doing great, even when it seems like you are not. So running a business is not easy, but you are destined for it, so just keep on keeping on. The best is yet to come, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time, Ahang. This has been such a great conversation.
Speaker 2:It has been my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, we're truly grateful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. If you're not already subscribed, please do so on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review so we know how we're doing. I'm Akego Okoye and you have been listening to African Business Stories.