International Girls in ICT Day is an ITU initiative aiming to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of ICTs, enabling both girls and technology companies to reap the benefits of greater female participation in the ICT sector. This year it took place on Thursday 26th of April.
To date, over 240,000 girls and young women have taken part in more than 7,200 celebrations of International Girls in ICT Day in 160 countries worldwide.
Over the last 5 years, the GSMA has participated in this initiative and this year the regions also played a part in their own way.
The theme of the day was ‘Turning your dreams into goals through ICT’. In the Nairobi office, 21 girls form 2 different schools attended the event with their parents and teachers. The GSMA partnered with Funkidz Limited which is an exciting, innovative children’s brand that designs and manufactures products targeting children from age 0-16 years. Through their Kidz Go Tech platform (which is focused on transforming and leap frogging education on the African continent experientially using 21st century learning by way of tech, animation and robotics) took the girls through the process of making an affordable lamp which would be their way of contributing to one of the pillars in Kenya’s big 4 agenda – affordable housing.
The GSMA team also took the girls through the SDGs and their relevance to their various career goals as well as a session on Child Online Protection which they enjoyed and seemed to relate.In the end, the girls, teachers and parents were grateful to have participated in the events of the day as is clear from this testimonial from one of the parents:
“From the feedback by some of the girls, the day was a great success, very inspirational and a true eye opener into Tech world & cyber bullying. They had a blast including the meals! Thank you to the host GSMA, organizers & all involved to making the event a successful one.” – Salome Gathoni