With plans to eventually set up a center to teach children to code, she said many of her female friends shied away from IT development because it was male-dominated. Only four out of 40 students on her degree course are women, she pointed out. Across Latin America, the participation of girls and women in technology and science has lagged far behind men, experts say.

Maylis and her three friends are ambitious young computer programmers who study together in the northern city of Saint-Louis, and are part of a growing push to get girls coding in Senegal and several other African countries. Coding clubs have been set up for girls between the age of five and 24 as part of a #RewritingTheCode campaign started by the charity Theirworld.