In Tanzania, the Jovia project addresses the critical issue of the digital gender divide. Our project gives underprivileged girls and young women in Tanzania who are out of school and unemployed the opportunity to receive advanced IT and entrepreneurship training as well as the support ecosystem they need to successfully obtain formal employment, particularly in ICT-related employment, or to develop and launch IT-based (social) businesses.

This project incorporates two complementary elements:
1) A six-month high-quality advanced IT and entrepreneurship training program for girls and young women aged 17 to 24.
2) An offline and online incubator to assist girls and young women in starting IT-based businesses.

Project objectives
Our main goal is to promote women's socioeconomic empowerment in Tanzania and other Sub-Saharan African countries through tech-based entrepreneurship and participation in the formal employment sector, particularly in ICT-related jobs.
I) To provide high-quality IT and entrepreneurship skills training to underprivileged young women in Tanzania, thereby increasing their employability;
ii) To establish a pan-African digital incubator to provide women (social) entrepreneurs with critical resources to launch and grow their tech-based start-ups, including mentorship, access to potential partners, funders, I and capacity-building support, and access to potential customers;
iii) To pilot an innovative, comprehensive women's IT training and tech entrepreneurship incubation model that can be replicated and scaled up elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa;

Since 2019, we have established two Girls innovating spaces through which we have trained 270 girls and young women, 53 of whom have found formal employment in ICT-related fields, 30 startups have been established, and 87 have re-enrolled and are continuing their education in higher learning institutions.
For instance, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDZ96AqOCxM&t=41s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-DLb_EXvE4

https://www.appsandgirls.com/jovia-program/

• United Republic of Tanzania

• Women
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Refugees and internally displaced people
• Remote and rural communities
• Out of school Girls and young women

The Jovia project was launched in Tanzania-Dar es Salaam for girls and young women who had dropped out of school due to a variety of reasons such as pregnancy, early marriage, financial difficulties, and so on.
The Jovia project was first implemented in Dar es salaam tanzania for girls and young women who had dropped out of school due to different reasons such as pregnancies, early marriages, financial issues etc. The project was later first replicated in Kajiado in Kenya among the maasai communities , Bukavu and Kivu in DRC among young women affected by Gender based violence and war victims in 2019. We have gone further to replicate the same project model in another region in Morogoro,Tanzania among pastoral and farmer communities in Mvomero. This project can be replicated in several areas of need and creates different opportunities ie business , employment opportunities and solutions to different problems in the area) for both the girls and the entire community around the girls innovation space.
By establishing more girl's innovation spaces in different regions or areas of need, such as remote areas and refugee camps, and collaborating with a diverse set of stakeholders (government initiatives, NGOs, corporations, and individuals), we will help to pollinate the digital transformation and inclusion of young women across many areas and beyond. Young women and girls who are not enrolled in school can use Innovation spaces to broaden their opportunities in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Furthermore, the project curriculum and methodology can be adopted by vocational training institutions or colleges for their enrolled young people, thereby bridging the digital divide.

The Jovia project directly targets young women and girls aged 17 to 24 from Tanzania's underprivileged communities who are out of school, unemployed, or whose families live below the World Bank's poverty line ($1.90 per capita/per day).
These women cannot afford to pay for the training and services we provide; however, in order to sustain the project, we extend the service to girls and young women from financially stable families, who are required to pay a tuition fee, thereby raising funds.
We have also been working to generate robust, aggregated results over a three-year period to demonstrate the far-reaching impact and return on investment of this innovative model (including, but not limited to, I promoting women's employment in the formal (ICT-related) employment sector and ii) promoting women's tech-based entrepreneurship).

The following key phases are to: I ensure the sustainability of the training programs (keeping in mind that the costs of setting up will be significantly lower because a large portion of the initial investment was in the development of the digital incubator platform).

ii) Some of the program's graduates are/will be hired as trainers and administrators, making the program more manageable and beneficiary-focused.

Finally, Apps and Girls is currently developing a multi-year social business model in order to generate revenue streams in the long run.
As the program grows, our longer-term goal is to offer a diverse portfolio of paid services, such as loan-based financing of our training, paid "IT training and digital upskilling packages," paid professional coaching & mentorship services, offline IT & entrepreneurship training hub and online hub subscription packages, and so on.

Training in advanced IT (Web and mobile application development, graphics design, photography, etc) and entrepreneurship for young women. i) By changing harmful gender stereotypes about women and girls in the ecosystem, which perpetuate discrimination and limit women and girls' opportunities to reach their full potential (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW, Article 5 on Gender Stereotypes). ii) by assisting in the abolition of educational discrimination against women and girls. This includes ensuring that they have equal access to and participation in ICT education (CEDAW, Article 10 on Education) iii) helps to overcome women's employment exclusion by providing them with the skills they need to pursue a career in the formal or IT sectors (CEDAW, Article 11 on Employment) Offline and online incubation of young female start-ups: mentorship of emerging young female entrepreneurs and startup incubation i) Helps to eliminate discrimination against women and girls in all aspects of economic and social life by ensuring that young women have equal opportunities to start their own businesses (by providing them with the necessary resources) (CEDAW, Article 13 on Economic and Social Life) ii) Offering a variety of start-up support services to women-owned and led businesses in Tanzania and Sub-Saharan Africa increases their chances of success: Women are less likely to start a business in the region, according to the GEM 2016/2017 Report. Role models; sources of inspiration The lack of female role models in the digital sector is one of the major contributors to the digital gender gap. Our project creates a cyclical process that develops role models and mentors to support and inspire more girls and young women to pursue careers in STEM fields as tech entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, and leaders in high-level positions.