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ITU applauds establishment of global ICT ‘Girls Day’
Initiative aims to encourage more girls into the ICT
field
Geneva, 08 April 2011 – ITU
welcomes the establishment of an international ‘Girls in ICT Day’, which will be
held every year on the fourth Thursday in April, beginning this year.
The new
‘Girls Day’ is the direct result of the adoption of Resolution 70 by ITU’s
Plenipotentiary Conference in Guadalajara in 2010. The Resolution, ‘Gender
mainstreaming in ITU and promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of
women through information and communication technologies’, resolved to
incorporate a gender perspective in the implementation of all programmes and
plans of ITU, and established the new Global Network of Women in ICT:
http://witnet.org/index.php.
The network is designed to encourage girls and young
women to choose technology careers by providing mentoring resources, positive,
high-profile role models and toolkits that help national authorities and
organizations promote technology careers to women. It is being supported and
promoted by ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), which, through its
Gender Unit, is working on a range of strategies to leverage ICTs to improve the
livelihood of women worldwide.
A toolkit designed to provide all the information and resources needed to run a
national ‘Girls in ICT Day’ is now available at:
http://witnet.org/documents/girlsday-toolkit.pdf.
ITU actively
encourages its Member States and Sector
Members to get involved and organize local, regional and national events
designed to showcase ICTs and technology careers to young female students. It
also invites Ministries of Education, Ministries of Communications and other
government entities to support the initiative by partnering with private sector
companies to reach out to young girls through schools, tertiary institutions and
in-house mentoring and shadowing programmes.
“This new
Girls in ICT Day will provide a much-needed boost to female participation in the
ICT sector,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré. “With many countries
now forecasting a shortage of skilled ICT professionals within the next ten
years, it’s vital that we attract young women into technology if we are to
sustain healthy growth rates for the industry overall. With excellent employment
opportunities and very good remuneration, a career in technology represents an
excellent choice for girls in every country worldwide.”
The
initiative was the brainchild of Serbia’s Minister of Telecommunications and
Information Society, Ms Jasna Matić, who launched the Global Network of Women in
ICT at a special
event in
New York in February, with the support of Dr Touré, the Executive Director of UN
Women, Michelle Bachelet, and a number of high-ranking female dignitaries.
“I am delighted that this joint initiative of ITU and the Serbian Ministry of
Telecommunications and Information Society resulted in the launch of the Global
Network of Women Decision Makers in ICT, and attracted the participation and
support of global leaders like Michelle Bachelet,” said Minister Matić.
“It is especially important that the launch was positioned as one of the
highlighted initiatives during the 55th session of the Conference on
the Status of Women.”
ITU’s support for the establishment of the Girls Day and for the launch of the
Global Network of Women in ICT are among the first activities in a year-long
call to action around the theme of ‘Women and Girls in ICT’ endorsed by
Resolution 70. Another recent activity was a High-level Panel Debate organized
to commemorate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, with the
theme of ‘Goodbye to the IT girl? Why are young women
deserting technology?’.
A report
of this event can be found at:
www.itu.int/en/womensday/Pages/default.aspx, and the archived audiocast is available at:
www.itu.int/ibs/sg/20110310WomenDay/index.phtml.
The BDT will also be spearheading a number of gender-related initiatives over
the course of the year, such as the recent announcement of a new partnership
with
Telecentre.org
to train disadvantaged women in basic use of ICT equipment and applications.
“Technology is now widely recognized as a critical enabler of socio-economic
development,” said BDT Director Mr Brahima Sanou. “Leveraging the power of ICTs
to improve the livelihood of women worldwide has the power to dramatically
accelerate progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 3 on gender
equality by the target date of 2015.”
For more information, please contact:
Sarah Parkes, Chief, Media Relations and Public Information,
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