The long road ahead for equity in tech, Efua Akumanyi – Coding Black Females
UKTN | The Podcast
UKTN
5.0 • 6 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Efua Akumanyi, chief technology officer at Coding Black Females, discusses her own entry into the world of software development as one of the few women on an AI degree, why so many women feel discouraged from entering the sector and how she re-dedicated her career to supporting black women entering tech.
Coding Black Females is the largest community of black women in the UK tech industry. The group aims to grow, educate and inspire one of the most underrepresented groups in the industry.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | When it comes to junior developers entering the industry, it can be a bit of problematic |
| 0:10.4 | because maybe managers are maybe seen just the short-term goals of introducing AI without |
| 0:15.5 | thinking about the long-term goals of not having a pipeline of senior developers to fix |
| 0:19.1 | the broken AI that they are implementing. |
| 0:21.6 | And I was so sad, like, how can you spend three years? We've sat coding for years, tears, everything. |
| 0:30.6 | We got through it and you're not going to, you're not going to use your degree. I couldn't fathom that part. |
| 0:44.9 | I just looked around and thought, through all of my career and now got into a different branch of my life and career, I just don't see any black women. I'd not met one black woman |
| 0:51.0 | coder. And now a message from our podcast sponsor, HSBC Innovation Banking. |
| 0:58.8 | You're not ordinary. No 9 to 5 meal, deal lunches, meetings about meetings, compulsory team |
| 1:05.3 | building, living for the weekend. You're made for more, for the extraordinary, and you need an extraordinary bank. |
| 1:13.6 | HSBC innovation banking exists exclusively to help visionary VC-backed tech and life science |
| 1:20.0 | businesses achieve their ambitions. |
| 1:22.9 | From Preseed to IPO and beyond, we provide custom solutions co-created by actual industry experts to help |
| 1:30.7 | you scale, delivered by a dedicated team you can call whenever you need to. Find out why |
| 1:37.5 | four in ten UK unicorns have chosen us at HSBC Innovationbanking.co.com.uk. |
| 1:44.9 | Disclaimer. |
| 1:46.0 | Number represents UK VC-backed companies |
| 1:48.5 | with a market valuation greater than $1 billion in November 2025 |
| 1:53.6 | that are serviceable by HSBC Innovation Bank Limited. |
| 1:58.1 | Please see our website for full details |
| 1:59.9 | about HSBC Innovation Bank Limited |
| 2:02.7 | serviceable market. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from UKTN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of UKTN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.