THE Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) yesterday hosted the Girls in ICT Day 2015 Mentorship Lunch at its head office located at High Street, Kingston, Georgetown. The event saw a good turnout of young professionals, and was characterised by a very interactive and informative session geared towards motivating more females to pursue an ICT career.

Chairperson of the GNBA, Bibi Shaddick, in welcoming remarks said that there is a lot of potential for youths, especially girls and women, in the field of ICT and encouraged them to grab those opportunities.

She added that in the distant past women worked as typist clerks, which showed that women were the first in that field and noted that today more women are employed in call centres and other places of employment in the ICT forefront.

Shaddick said, “We want our nation, not only women, to be technologically inclined and we also want our women to lead, not walk behind men in ICT.”

Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, ITU Secretary-General Girls in ICT Day 2015 message was recorded and played for the event yesterday. The message highlighted the benefits derived from ICT and how young girls and women could be part of it.

Giving an overview of Girls in ICT Day, Mellisa Payne, an engineer at the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) said that females are under- represented in decision making in ICT; as such, their voices are not heard and also revealed that less girls are enrolling for ICT at the University of Guyana (UG) and that needed to be changed.

She told the gathering that International Girls in ICT Day is an initiative launched by members of the International Telecommunications Union at its 2010 Plenipotentiary Conference with the idea of creating a global environment that will empower and encourage girls and young women to consider careers in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in April each year.
This year, International Girls in ICT Day will be observed on April 23, 2015.

Payne added that for the past three years Guyana has celebrated International Girls in ICT Day, and this year they plan to once again play their part in the observance.

She added that the National Frequency Management Unit ((NFMU) in collaboration with other stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, the Guyana National Broadcasting Corporation, E-Government Unit, One Laptop Per Family, Digicel, Qualfon, GT&T, NT Computeac, Brainstreet Group, Global Technology, Guyana Society for the Blind and University of Guyana have planned and organised several activities for 2015.

These activities include:
A Mentorship/Networking Lunch at the GNBA head office, Lot 68 High Street, Kingston, Georgetown, on April 17, 2015. The event will provide a forum for 50 females, comprising Computer Science/IT students, It teachers and ICT professionals to interact and network and generally discuss issues that prevent females from choosing and pursuing careers in the ICT field. It is expected that this forum will be an annual event and will yield suggestions that would lead to more girls choosing careers in the ICT sector.

A Tech Day Camp will be held on April 20, 2015 at UG’s Centre for Information Technology. It will target 20 female IT students and aims to develop their interest in computer programming and logical problem solving.

There will also be a Girls in ICT Day Symposium on April 23, 2015, and this will be held at North Ruimveldt Secondary School for 300 pupils of 3rd and 4th forms.
At this event, female ICT professionals will speak about their experiences and present themselves as role models for the young students.

Additionally, booths will be set up to display some ICT applications in such areas as cyber security, networking, graphic design and computer programming. At these booths, the students will have opportunities to learn more about the particular activity/application.

During the event, there was a dramatic poem by Ms. Levon George titled, “Remember When,” which was well received. There was also an energetic dramatic piece by nine-year-old Mariel Barrow of North Georgetown Primary School.

In the feature address, Jennifer Britton, Regional Coordinator in ICT for the Caribbean with the CARICOM Secretariat, gave a power-point presentation and interacted with the young professionals yesterday.

With the theme, “Create the life you want with ICT,” Britton said ICT is more than phones and computers and it is anything that has a microprocessor. She pointed out that a lot of us are already in the ICT field and we do not even know the others such as librarians, postal workers, journalists, etc.

She urged the girls present to pursue a career in ICT as she outlined the benefits both on the regional and international scene, where they could work right from their homes.

Britton also talked about ICT trends and its evolution among other topical issues pertaining to ICT in Guyana.

During lunch, a lively discussion followed with questions, comments and inputs from all present.