Deputy Minister for Communications, Vincent Sowah Odotei, has revealed that government is setting up a project which will see 1000 girls receive basic training in ICT annually.
He noted that women must be given the necessary help to acquire the skills needed to adapt to the digital economy.
“Under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo we intend to expose annually1000 girls to the basics of ICT and to give them the chance to also be part of this digital revolution.”
Mr Odotei was speaking on behalf of the Minister for Communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful at the second Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology.
The 2018 Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology saw young African female technologists, with many of Africa’s most prominent ICT policymakers and technology leaders discuss the way forward in bridging the gender gap in technology.
Bridging the digital gender gap is a major concern with women in some African communities having less or no access to technology.
The summit focuses on helping millions of women and girls in Africa become familiar with technology and acquire more skills to help move technology in Africa forward.
Former Nigerian minister of ICT, Omobola Johnson also stressed the need to build a pipeline of women that are interested and passionate about technology and are willing enough to want to create a business.
“There are very few female entrepreneurs and that’s a real challenge and that’s what we really need to work towards. It’s not just about creating awareness and making sure that they know about the possibility, but it’s about beginning to encourage them to step out there and make that bold step to have those companies that is technology based or technology led,” she said.
The former Communications Minister is however calling on all stakeholders to assist in the project and not to rely on government alone.
“There have been a lot of progress in terms of budgetary allocation. A lot of work that we were doing in ICT cannot be about government alone, we have to aggregate, we have to attract investments into that sector and it can’t be just government doing this work.” She lamented.
The 2018 Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology is a collaboration between the World Wide Web Foundation, Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), Ministry of Communications, African Development Bank, Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Internet Society, Facebook, Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany), Google, Swedish International Development Agency and UN Women.
The theme for this year’s summit is “Unlocking Africa’s Digital Future”, and according to the Head of Africa, Alliance for Affordable Internet, Onica Makwakwa, there’s the need for African governments to adopt the ‘one for two policy’ meaning that every citizen should be entitled to 1 gigabyte of data per month.
“African government has to adopt the one for two policy which means that every citizen needs to have at least one gigabyte of data per month for not more than two percent monthly on average income,” she noted.
