Girls in ICT 2015 -By Afchix Uganda Team

 

The Afchix Uganda Team, just after mentoring the girls

Kampala, Uganda - AfChix Uganda (http://afchix.blogspot.com/), celebrated the International Girls In ICT Day on Saturday 18^th April, 2015 with just over 50 girls from Iganga Senior Secondary School at the Uganda Institute of Information & Communications Technology in Nakawa. This was in partnership with Connect Africa (www.connect-africa.org), a grassroots organization that works with villagers to improve their lives.

The International Girls in ICT Day is an initiative backed by all International Telecommunications Union (ITU) member states. It aims to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The Afchix Uganda community of women considers gender diversity in the computer science & ICT industry very critical for increased creativity and innovative performance of the industry. It believe that by exposing these girls to this kind of career guidance, they are empowered to join technical fields confidently.

The girls in attendance were between the ages of 12 and 14. Young Techpreneurs and Engineers (below 26) inspired the girls with testimonials about their experiences and startups.

There was a video session, where the girls were showed recordings of different Afchix women in tech talking about themselves (what they studied, what they do in terms of jobs, words of encouragement to upcoming women in tech) and different careers in ICT. 

The questions and answers session was more engaging, the girls freely asked as many questions as possible. A panel of young Afchix women in tech including System Administrators, Software Engineers, Network Administrators, Techpreneurs, Website developers were available and answered all the questions raised by the girls.

After the event, over 95% of the girls indicated that they had learned a lot new various career options in computing that they had never known earlier. Over 80% were inspired by the young women in tech and what they have done with ICT.  One girl wrote: "I didn't believe that there was anything good in ICT, I thought the only career in ICT was teaching but now I believe that one can be really special and big in ICT"

                 

Iganga Girls School excited during the photo shoot