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ITU Award goes to President Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Sun
Yafang and Geena Davis
Focus on digital opportunities for women and
girls
Geneva, 16 May 2012 – The 2012 World Telecommunication and
Information Society Award was presented to three eminent personalities:
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, Huawei Chairman Sun
Yafang, and Academy Award winning actor Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis
Institute of Gender in Media. The ceremony took place in Geneva to mark the
147th anniversary of the establishment of ITU in 1865.
The theme for the 2012 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day
focuses on ‘Women and girls in ICT’. It is aimed at extending digital
opportunities by providing avenues of advancement to professional women at the
highest echelons of decision-making, and by encouraging young women to seek new
careers within the sector.
In a message on the occasion of World Telecommunication and Information
Society Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “On this World
Telecommunication and Information Society Day, I call again for wide-ranging
efforts to close both the digital divide and the gender gap. All people
must be able to make the best use of information and communications technology
to help create the future we want.”
ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré further reaffirmed that gender equality
is a basic human right enshrined in the UN Charter, and one of the main
objectives of the UN Millennium Development Goals.
“We are focusing our efforts this year on women and girls, using the power of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide new digital
opportunities to end discrimination, and to empower women and girls to
participate fully in society” Dr Touré said. “Girls and young women with ICT
skills will find jobs that offer creativity, innovation, and entirely new ways
of working. And encouraging girls into the technology industry will create a
positive feedback loop – in turn creating inspiring role models for the next
generation.”
One such role model, is represented by H.E. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
President of Argentina who has spearheaded numerous digital initiatives such as
the ‘Equal Connect Programme’ which aims to reduce the digital divide across
Argentina’s educational system with a specific focus on developing quality
digital content.
Mr Amado Boudou, Vice-President of Argentina accepted the Award on behalf of
President Fernández. Mr Boudou said, “Equality is not about being able to speak
from our own homes; equality is that we can all hear, we can all link up to, and
we all exercise our equal rights and opportunities to access cutting-edge
technologies.”
Ms Sun Yafang emphasized that positive role models and real gender equality
are critical for the ICT industry. “The ICT market is full of uncertainties,
requiring companies to be highly adaptive,” said Ms Sun. “In light of this, I
have been promoting female manager development at Huawei. This programme gives
preference to women in manager selection when all qualifications are equal. In
this way, we can provide real development opportunities for our female
employees.”
Ms Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media, has
dedicated herself to advocating more positive representations of women and girls
in the media and knows well the importance of reinforcing positive role models.
Accepting her award she said: “Media can create positive opportunities to
overcome social and cultural barriers. We know that if girls watch female
characters in un-stereotyped activities, it heightens the possibility that girls
will seek employment in non-traditional vocations. And, boys and men will come
to see it as the norm and not the exception. If they can see it, they can be
it”.
Dr Hamadoun Touré concluded by saying that “Girls looking at their career
choices need real, flesh-and-blood, role models they can aspire to – like our
prestigious Laureates. We need to close the gender gap, and getting girls and
young women into the ICT sector is a great way of helping to do that. At ITU,
raising awareness of this issue did not start today and certainly will not stop
today. It will continue to form an important part of our focus over the next
years and we count on the support and expertise of all our members and friends
to work with us to redress the gender imbalance in the ICT sector.”
For more information, see
www.itu.int/wtisd/index.html or contact:
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Paul Conneally
Head, Communications and Partnership Promotion Division, ITU
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Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations
and Public Information
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