Data science is increasingly shaping decision-making across the food system, from the household to the highest levels of policymaking. Critical challenges like climate change, resource constraints, and technological advances are reshaping how we imagine the future of agriculture, climate resilience, and sustainability, making way for data science-driven solutions. Data science-driven food systems have the potential to transform agrifood systems by harnessing advanced technologies and data analytics.

This shift calls for intense efforts to bolster action to strengthen data scientists’ capacity, visibility, and leadership, ensuring high-quality solutions. Despite this growing demand, Africa still suffers from significant gender disparity in the field of science. Women remain underrepresented, leading to a significant gender gap in science, where their unique needs and insights are often missing from the solutions.

African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) recognizes this urgency and, through the African Women in Data Science Fellowship, cultivates a strong pipeline of African women equipped to apply advanced data science approaches to transform agrifood systems and strengthen climate resilience.  The Fellowship seeks to empower early to mid-career African women data professionals with the technical expertise, leadership acumen, and collaborative networks needed to drive impactful, data-informed solutions across the continent.

As part of the program’s core interventions, AWARD recently convened an immersive two-week technical bootcamp in Nairobi for Women in Data Science Fellowship Fellows, a strategic intervention designed to bridge the science gap and place women at the forefront of action transforming agrifood systems. Jointly led by AWARD and Moringa School, the bootcamp blends hands‑on sessions, capstone project design, and peer learning to strengthen fellows’ analytical and problem‑solving capabilities, enabling them to deploy data science tools for real‑world agricultural innovation.

“The bootcamp was not just theories and lectures. It also included hands-on practice, which I found very helpful. Before the bootcamp, I was hesitant about whether it would be enough to strengthen my skills. Now I am ready to apply the knowledge I have gained to complex environmental issues,” Dr.  Meron Tekalign Gelan, Assistant Professor, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Strengthening women’s technical capacity in data science is crucial for agrifood systems, especially as new tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and digital technologies emerge. Gender data gaps remain substantial, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence indicates that women account for only 31% of researchers, and this figure declines sharply as you move up the education and leadership levels, with only 28% reaching the PhD level.

The disparities highlight why it is imperative to accelerate interventions like the fellowship bootcamp. Equipping women in science with the right skills to enhance access to timely, accurate, and gender‑responsive data is vital for designing resilient, targeted agricultural interventions and for understanding the lived experiences of smallholder farmers.

“The tools I have learned (Python and Machine Learning) will be vital to how I handle data and make insights and recommendations for programs and interventions that farmers can actually relate to,” Dr. Martha Nelima Okumu, Associate Scientist, African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI), Kenya.

Following the bootcamp, the Fellows will embark on conceptualizing their data science projects, which address specific agrifood system gaps in their countries, as well as a two-month virtual training on applying data science to African food systems research and development.

See photos from the technical bootcamp training.