Since 2011, international girls in ICT Day, has been celebrated in over 150 countries around the world with more than 5,200 events and total participation of over 176,000 girls and young women. This year, the International Girls in ICT Day organized by Focushub Nigeria held on the 23rd of April in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
The event brought together tech professionals, student developers and female technology enthusiasts around the city of Port Harcourt. A number of professionals served as mentors to the young ladies during the speed mentoring session.
The day began with a brief introduction of FocusHub Nigeria and the concept of International girls in ICT day celebration globally, this was anchored by Iyke Uche (FocusHub Ng Co-Founder) and Sharon Georgewill (Media Intern, FocusHub Ng).Activities carried during the program ranged from basic hardware and software training to career exercises as well as speed mentoring sessions for the participants. It was wonderful to witness Monday Hunyeme give a brief talk on the revolution of IT in the 21st century, what to expect from ICT in the future and also intimated the girls on career choices in ICT.
Dayo Ibitoye, one of the mentors for the event and one time winner of Nigerian bloggers awards introduced the young girls to the wonderful world of blogging, sharing his personal success story of how he started his own blog and eventually got to where he is today.
Speed mentoring sessions featured
• Women and IT – surviving a male dominated terrain. This session was anchored by Ese Emerhi,
(ND-link project manager)
• Entrepreneurship – Starting a small IT business , workshop anchored by Olajumoke Osuagwu
(south-south coordinator Jumia JForce)
• Online Reputation- You are what you post, a talk hosted by Bereni Fiberisima
(CEO Netopps Concepts Nig)
• E-security- Staying safe online, cyber bullying by Dayo ibitoye.
(Content coordinator NDLink)
• Academics/ Endeavors : succeeding in Life by Olere Iluebbey
(Executive Director, Mind Africa Leadership initiative)
• It Career choices – making the best decisions which was anchored by Monday Hunyeme
(Managing partner Tamtech Ltd)
Since the inception of the GirlsinCT celebration in Portharcout, over 140 young girls have participated with documented impact especially in the area of their career choices and change in perception of ICT not being for men alone.
The overarching goal of Focushub is to introduce girls in Niger delta area to digital technology so as to enable them compete favorably in the outside world and in a field dominated by men. As a fall out of this event, Focushub is putting together a six-week intensive program for girls in tertiary institutions and who are within the ages of 20 and 30. The program is part of their digital jobs initiatives where girls will be taught how to work with WordPress, do graphics design among many others. Details of this will be out soon.
Focushub will therefore like to solicit support from every stakeholder to make this a reality. For further enquiries, please send an email to info@focushub.net or call 08180187070
