Gender Ministry, Cybastion, Cisco to Launch Women’s Tech Hubs, Daycare

Published: September 19, 2026

MONROVIA – Liberian women, including farmers, will be trained in digital, business, and agricultural skills at new technology hubs with on-site daycare under a partnership between the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and U.S. technology companies Cybastion and Cisco, announced on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

By Lennart Dodoo

The initiative, called the Liberia Women’s Digital and Economic Empowerment Program, will establish technology business campuses to strengthen women’s entrepreneurial and technical skills through structured training, Cybastion said. Women in selected districts will receive training through the Cisco Networking Academy, along with mentorship and digital tools, and each campus will include a daycare center so mothers can take part.

The hubs are aimed largely at women in agriculture. Cybastion said they will help women farmers increase production and processing, strengthen business management, get market and weather information, connect with financial services and join broader supply chains. The company said the program will also bring artificial intelligence tools to farmers.

Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister Gbeme Horace Kollie and Cybastion President and CEO Thierry Wandji are signing the partnership agreement at the launch, which also features Fran Katsoudas, Cisco’s executive vice president and chief people, policy and purpose officer, and a representative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, according to the event program.

The project is Cybastion’s second agreement with the Boakai government unveiled at the General Assembly. In September 2024, on the sidelines of the 79th session, Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cybastion Institute of Technology to build a new data center and connect Liberia to an additional subsea cable, under a five-year program called Digital Fast Track. No details of the cable or the data center were made public at the time.

Cisco and Cybastion run a similar program in Côte d’Ivoire, where they plan to train 200,000 young people in digital technology by 2030.

The companies and the ministry have not said how many hubs will be built, in which districts, at what cost or when the first campus will open.