ITU and UN Women will jointly announce the three winners of the 2016 GEM-TECH Awards at ITU Telecom World in Bangkok, Thailand, on 15 November, bringing global attention to the finest work being done to empower women in the digital world and deliver on the Sustainable Development Goal to improve gender equality (SDG5).
The GEM-TECH Awards recognize outstanding contributions by organizations, individuals and innovative policy-makers to advance gender equality in the technology sector with a specific focus on information and communication technologies (ICTs). The third annual Gender Equality and Mainstreaming in Technology Awards will highlight ITU's continued commitment to promoting innovation and partnerships that work to shrink the overall global internet user gender gap, which has grown since 2013 with currently more than 250 million fewer women online globally than men.
The 2016 GEM-TECH Award winners were selected by a panel of experts in gender mainstreaming and ICTs at ITU and UN Women. They will represent each of the following categories:
- Apply Technology for Women's Empowerment and Digital Inclusion
- Promote Women in the Technology Sector
- Develop Gender Responsive ICT Governance, Policy and Access
The ceremony will feature opening remarks from high level representatives of ITU and UN Women and a keynote address from Kathryn C. Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society.
ITU and UN Women are proud to also announce that the GEM-TECH Awards worked closely with these partners from public and private sectors around the world: the Internet Society, Verizon, MasterCard, Facebook, Swiss Confederation Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA), and VimpelCom.