Why Women, Girls Should Embrace ICT – WitinWomen in Technology in Nigeria (Witin), a non-governmental organization has said that Nigeria stands at a great disadvantage if disparities between the women and men folks to basic ICT services continue in the country. Witin is saddled with the responsibility of improving the lots of women and girls in the Nigerian society with ICT. Martha Omoekpen Alade, chairperson of the association said an economically empowered and technologically competent Nigerian woman with increased participation in the civic, social, political and economic processes is critical to achieving a better society. She described obvious disparity between the men folks and women in Nigeria in having access to basic Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services as a gross limitation to Nigeria’s quest of becoming a major economic bloc in the African sub-region. According to her, when women are empowered, the nation develops. She noted that using ICT to promote socio-economic empowerment of women and address equity issues with regard to gender, disadvantaged groups as well as those in rural and under-served communities has become a matter of urgency in Nigeria, if the country must realize and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Alade identified some challenges repelling young girls from pursuing careers in ICT to include -ignorance of the opportunities and benefits of ICT; lack of female ICT role models; unhelpful influence of parents and teachers to teach young female lads at very early stage of life; Girls also think ICT is more of hardware, mathematics, algorithms and programming.” To bridge the gap, she explained that Witin has come up with an initiative for Women and Girls. She informed that, the association is planning an online ICT contest for young girls across the nation as well as the Grassroots Women Empowerment Through ICT (GWEIT). The GWEIT, according to her is aimed at socio-economically empowering the Nigerian woman; addressing equity issues with regards to gender disadvantaged groups as well as those in the rural and underserved communities through the use of ICT” This project, she said will be implemented across all the states in Nigeria with the aid of Witin volunteers who will gather the data of these women. Alade explained that, the project will achieve, among others, creation of online presence with global patronage, so that anyone can locate their remote markets online; Google listing to make their site more searchable on the internet; Google maps to make their store physical site easily traceable; Google Analytics to monitor and trace site traffic; matching mobile site for easy access on mobile phones and access to business forum with thousands of SMBs in Nigeria.
Why Women, Girls Should Embrace ICT – Witin
