As part of the global movement to celebrate the international girls in ICT day, AfChix Uganda ( http://afchix.blogspot.com/) held a career guidance workshop with girls from Eastern part of Uganda who attended the event.

The event was held at the Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology. The girls who attended the event were between the ages of 12 and 14. Our goal was to create a more interactive free environment to the young girls, so we deliberately opted for young techpreneurs and other engineers (below 26) who the girls could easily relate with, to inspire them with their testimonials about their experiences and startups.

The event started off by giving a brief overview about the Girls in ICT event and why it is celebrated worldwide. There was also a video session, where we showed the girls the recordings of different Afchix women in tech talking about themselves (what they studied, what they do in terms of jobs, words of encouragement to upcoming women in tech). The video also showed each of them explaining about a specific career in ICT. This was specifically to motivate the girls and to expose them to the various career options in ICT.

Later in the day there was a session for questions and answers, a more engaging session, where we had the girls freely ask as many questions as possible. A panel of young Afchix women in tech including System Administrators, Software Engineers, Network Administrators, Techpreneurs, Website developers were available and answered all the questions raised by the girls.

The give-aways to some girls during the challenge activity included t-shirts branded with the Girls in ICT logo. The girls received the DVD recording for reference and note books.

Out of 50 students, 49 students answered the questionnaire. According to the feedback we received, over 95% of the girls indicated that the most interesting part of the event was the video that showed young girls explaining to them the various ICT career options. Over 80% were inspired by how young the women in tech were and what they have done with ICT. The majority indicated that they had learned of the various careers in ICT that they were never aware of and that their negative attitude towards ICT had changed. One girls feedback read: “ I never believed there was anything good in ICT, I thought the only career in ICT was teaching but now I really believe that someone can be very special and big in ICT .”

Sponsors:

Richard Moon in partnership with Connect Africa (www.connect-africa.org)

Robert Anyang and David Wozemba from Chemonics International

Nodumo Dhlamini from Afchix Africa Women in Technology, Uganda chapter

Afchix supporter from Bank of Uganda