| What is it like to be a woman in the ICT world? The 10th "Girl's Day" in Serbia isvirtually marked (over video call on Zoom) "Girl's Day", an international eventdedicated to overcoming gender-specific stereotypes in the field of work andoccupation, was realized for the tenth time in Serbia. The event aims toempower girls to be guided by personal interests and talents when choosingtheir professions, not by dividing them into "male" and"female" occupations. The virtual host of this year's "Girl's Day"was the HTEC Group, a technology company engaged in hardware and softwaredevelopment, organized by the German Development Cooperation through the DECIDEproject, in cooperation with the Association of Business Women of Serbia. Dueto the state of emergency, the event was held online. About 60 high school students had the opportunityto meet young, successful women who can be their role models and inspiration inachieving their personal and professional goals. The idea of this type ofcareer counseling is to support the female students further and to approachthem with different opportunities in life and career. The program, in which girls visit companies,institutions or high schools to get to know the professions in which women aretraditionally underrepresented, has first moved online. In an online exchangeof experiences and knowledge, six young women, engineers, designers,programmers, managers, recruiters of HTEC employees, shared with their studentstheir career and personal stories, and were ready to answer the students'questions as well. The girls who followed the program firsthand wereable to learn what it looks like to be a woman in the IT world, that a job inthat field is creative and that it requires innovative and original ideas. Inaddition, they learned that work in the IT sector is flexible in terms oforganization of working time, thus allowing a good balance of private andprofessional life. Asked how they see the future of digitaltechnology, HTEC representatives agreed that this progress could not bestopped. Their estimation is that technology will certainly make life easierand in this sense it should be used freely and without fear, but with a certainamount of caution, taking into account its impact on human psyche, environmentand other aspects of life. These young, successful women also had oneimportant message for all female students - to be courageous and ready for thechallenges in their future careers and careers, not to be afraid to go wrongand start over. When it comes to deciding which job to do, they were advised tofind the golden mean in the case of the dilemma of "a job I love or a jobthat makes a material profit". Most of the participants were students of schoolsinvolved in the new German Development Cooperation project implemented by GIZ"Dialogue on Youth Employment, Initiatives and Dual Education" -Technical Schools "Ivan Saric" Subotica, Technical Schools Obrenovac,Secondary Vocational Schools Kragujevac, Electrotechical Schools"Nikola" Tesla “Niš and Vlasotince TechnicalSchools. In addition, students from the Belgrade School of Navigation, NavalArchitecture and Hydrotechnics participated. As in previous years, the Association of BusinessWomen of Serbia (UPZ Serbia) is a partner of GIZ in this significantundertaking of empowering girls. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the"Girls Day" in Serbia, UPZ Serbia organized a number of activitiesfor which it received a great deal of institutional support. This year, UPZ,together with its members, organizes a competition, visits to companies and afinal online event called "VIP Girl's Day" for students in the finalgrades of primary schools.
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