Girl Equity: A day when “Girls in ICT Day” won’t need a separate day for celebration.
Girls in ICT Day is celebrated annually during the fourth Thursday in April. This year, it was celebrated on April 26, 2018. It aims to create a global environment that empowers and encourages young women and girls to consider careers in growing field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s), enabling both girls and technology companies to reap the benefits of greater female participation in the ICT sector. This year’s theme was “With STEM, We Innovate”
In Kenya, Youth for Technology Foundation(YTF) celebrated Girls in ICT Day by engaging five women in technology from the private, public and civil society sector in a twitter discussion. The theme for the tweet chat was “Educating Girls in Kenya-Digital skills for a Digital World”
While 63% of Kenyan women constitute the country’s workforce only 5.8% of Kenyan engineers are women. The gender gap is vivid and this can be narrowed by increasing the enrollment ratios of girls and women through quality education. In our discussion, we highlighted issues such as barriers affecting girls’ education, the role of Kenya’s Vison 2030, the role educators and teachers play in ensuring girls have the right opportunities. In addition, the panelists brainstormed and shared their ideas on strategies that can be adopted to advance girls in tech in Kenya.
YTF aims to reverse the gender gap in STEM-related careers, ensure equitable access to STEM careers for girls, and provide innovation design skills to meet real-world and local needs. We envision a world where all girls will have equal opportunities in tech careers so we won’t need to celebrate Girls in ICT day. Diverse teams improve creativity, problem solving, productivity and provides companies with larger talent pools.
As a young girl, I grew up with a zeal and yearn for technology. Growing up on the coast of Kenya, I had a strong admiration about airplanes and my interest to venture into science and technology grew daily. However, the educational curriculum at that time didn’t favor my interest in aeronautical engineering in particular. but this didn’t conceal my passion for technology. I continued to look for opportunities to become immersed in STEM with the ultimate goal of helping people, helping to change the lives of communities and empowering them socially and through a supportive education system into sustaining themselves.
In many African countries, neither the educational curriculum nor the community encourages girls’ interest in STEM subjects. As a result, girls and women who are not exposed to ICT subjects, disengage in possibilities and opportunities. Additionally, lack of role models in the classroom and community is a great barrier. I recall Mercy Wanjiru, a pupil at Makena school, one of the schools YTF partners with in Kenya remarking “I would love to become an engineer when I grow up” and I am compelled to appreciate the fact that you can’t be what you can’t see.
A lack of exposure to STEM education, ideas and digital skills is a great barrier especially in most developing countries if not all. Girls are particularly inspired by the social service aspects of making and creating and this brings to the realization of impacting them with hands-on experience. This is why YTF in partnership with MasterCard implements Girls4Tech in Kenya, a program that helps girls identify and experiment with STEM related career students so students are prepared for jobs of the 21st century.
Kenya’s Vision 2030 provides tremendous opportunities for the youth trained in technological and innovation skills in significant infrastructure, environmental and energy developments. These jobs demand unique applications of technology skills in programming, robotics, engineering, innovation an 3D printing. As an eSkills4Girls ambassador, I implemented an eSkills4girls program at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). The program is aimed at empowering girls with creative and problem-solving skills to start or grow businesses in their communities. This is just one of the ways of ensuring girls are skilled for the future of work.
The largest percentage of children, pupils and students in developing countries like Kenya have limited access to quality education. My work is mostly focused on SDG4(Quality Education) and SDG5(Gender Equality) because they are issues that are dearest to me and I know closing the gap will be beneficial to not just girls in Kenya but to boys, girls, men and women worldwide. I know that while “I may not change the whole world, I know I can change one person’s world.”
No one ever moved without making a single step. Girls in ICT Day is a wakeup call for women and girls. These women are the economic backbone of their families, communities and countries. They are visionaries, change-makers and innovators. The world benefits when women are empowered, connected, educated & are able to contribute towards development. If all women would be empowered, I can imagine what an amazing world this would be.
