With women and girls representing half of the society, IBM Z’s Student Experience team celebrates #GirlsinICT’s 10th anniversary by hosting a Q&A session to share some of the wonderful initiatives the ITU has in store for you!
IBMZ was pleased to conduct a Q&A session to support #GirlsinICT with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – the IT branch of the United Nations. This intriguing discussion covered three main areas: the inspiration and motivation behind working towards digital gender equality, the initiatives of both ITU and Sisters of Code to include more women and girls in tech, and how we as individuals can work toward achieving a more digitally inclusive world.
The session started with hosts introduction from Melissa Sassi” (Chief Penguin, IBM Z - Student & Entrepreneur Experience) alongside Phila Phungula (IBM Z Developer Advocate), and Lella Halloum (IBM Z Champion, Z Ambassador & IBM Z Global Student Hub Senator) with keynote speakers, Reema Moussa (#GirlsinICTs Program Coordinator) and Natalja Rodionova (Founder of Sisters of Code).
"Without having a strong presence of women in the tech sector, and if there’s a bias presence- in tech we will be missing an important perspective in ICT," said Reema Moussa, Girls in ICTs Program Coordinator, in her welcoming remarks to over online participants.
The digital divide is real and is influencing young females’ involvement in IT and tech-related jobs. We can clearly see that worldwide women now have lower participation in tech including computer science and computing jobs compared to the previous decade.
Tech is for everyone. That’s why our talk emphasized the importance of involving multiple stakeholders on the international level from the private sector, NGOs, international agencies like the UN, the academia, and government agencies to cooperate on digital inclusion and provide fairer access to skills and opportunities in tech.
Involvement from a wide variety of stakeholders is vital to supporting STEM education for all. Numerous girls don’t know what computer science or enterprise computing actually means due to several factors including society's influence. It’s critical for the private sector to collaborate with UN agencies, formal, and informal education to design a curriculum that attracts more young girls into STEM. An important part is integrating digital literacy skills into the curriculum, including informal means, introducing technological devices, platforms, and digital skills to teach women and girls exactly how to leverage the tools in front of them to work toward their best interests.
Even though digital skills are known to be from the biggest enablers for equal access to the labor market, around half of women worldwide still lack internet access, and a large portion lack essential digital and programming skills compared to men, which shows the importance of programs that many organizations and companies such as IBM Z to teach different digital skills and educate both genders on how to use technology together. The aim is to solve problems and build lifesaving solutions to achieve broader societal changes by showcasing the ease with which individuals can have access to and understand data and essential tech skills.
In professional settings, women´s contributions and views are also crucial in every form of tech design. Having different opinions leads to more creative and inclusive technology. Instead of relying on exclusive views or participation of one gender or category, let’s start the conversation with girls and females to get their perspectives early on the possible opportunities that various stakeholders can work to provide for an all-encompassing and creative job in tech for women.
We continued our discussion on the diversity and inclusion of girls in tech with leaders from IBM Z, ITU, and Sisters of Code giving important data and insights on initiatives that could increase the involvement of females in the technological fields.
Highlighting some of the international efforts that aim to attract more girls into tech, ITU initiated the “Digital Opportunity Trust”, which is an initiative with the objective of enabling youth-led actions to start building skills in technology in Africa. Another big program is “EQUALS” which started in 2016, as a collaboration between 5 different founding partners (UN Universities, UN Women, ITU, GSMA, and the International Trade Centre) to combat the digital divide around the world. More like-minded programs to lead girls into tech are needed to further close the gender gap in tech, which often starts at very early ages.
Natalja Rodionova continued the discussion by focusing on undoing the obstacles to women’s active participation in tech and offering concrete solutions by founding Sisters of Code, which aims to empower girls to explore technology and become creators. It’s all about boosting girls’ creativity, empowering girls to learn web development and digital coding, and helping them feel welcomed in tech. This involves mentorship and identifying role models actively working in the tech community.
Not to forget, of course, the importance of personal efforts from individuals to attract more women in tech. Connecting young girls with role models that are successful in technology to help them becoming more positive about their future in tech and showcasing how women help create value in technical professions, is another example of a successful digital gender equality effort.
IBM Z’s Chief Penguin, Melissa Sassi, underlined the vitality of individual efforts to draw more girls in the tech sphere, and how we can translate tech for good and social good into our professional and personal lives to campaign for quality education and digital gender inclusion. Teaching youth to appreciate diversity is the first key step towards a more balanced tech community. Advocating on a personal level for women’s access to technology is another important pillar to advance gender digital equality. We can work towards a more digitally inclusive society by amplifying women’s voices and role models in tech and enterprise computing fields. We also need to empower younger generations to actively participate in STEM and provide them with adequate tech-related education early on to foster interest in programming, coding, and technology-related career paths.
The inspiration behind our initiatives for digital equality comes from how technology interacts within and across communities to create sustainability and how to move communities into action mode. Tech also helps people from non-technical backgrounds connect to a larger group of like-minded people interested in using tech for good and in taking concrete actions to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, which help organize the world around social and environmental purposes.
The entire chat gave our students a better understanding of how we can empower young girls to approach technology-related fields and the necessary shifts that must take place to ensure they thrive in STEM. We can say that the power of all the initiatives discussed lies in…not only improving the livelihood of girls involved in these projects but in also creating innovations that help their local communities.
We would like to thank our speakers for creating a thought-provoking discussion and for sharing their expertise with the attendees!
Don’t forget to check out the work of our collaborators ITU working towards involving key stakeholders and communities to encourage higher female involvement in STEM fields. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Women-and-Girls/Girls-in-ICT-Portal/Pages/GirlsInICTDay/2021/GICT-2021.aspx.
And, Sisters of Code website www.sistersofcode.org
Last of All, in case you missed the session, you could replay it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gEcbJ10mZXk