FG committed to getting more Women into ICT-Ekpere-Eta

Director-General of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), Mrs. Mary Ekpere-Eta Esq

Director-General of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), Mrs. Mary Ekpere-Eta Esq.,  has reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to making investment targeted at significantly increasing the number of female ICT professionals in the country.

Speaking at an event to mark the International Girls in ICT Day, held at the NCWD on Tuesday, Ekpere-Eta, explained that the Federal Government recognizes the importance of ICT to critical sectors of the economy, thereby making it imperative to come up with programmes to bring in women, who form fifty percent of the country’s population to be employed or contracted for the use of ICT and the internet by big and small businesses.

The Girls in ICT Day 2018 has as its theme: ‘Transforming the Lives of Young Nigerian Girls and Women’.

The NCWD D.G described as apt, the theme for this year’s commemoration as it has been the philosophy behind the scale-up of training for women and girls in ICT by her agency in the last one year.

She further explained that the when women are trained in other areas such as agriculture, beauty and artisanship in lucrative trades, ICT and the use of mobile technology are incorporated in their trainings to make their services more attractive to clients and investors alike.

50 women including the visually impaired benefitted from most recent training programme on ICT and Project Management organized by the NCWD.

“At the NCWD we have doubled efforts to get more women into ICT as well their having ICT and mobile technology knowledge for running and marketing their businesses. Our investment in this regard is unprecedented, even as we have fully repositioned our ICT department to be able to train women in the latest technology to make them competitive in their various field and the ICT sector”, the D.G said.

Also speaking at the event organized by the association of Nigerian Women in ICT, wife of the minister for Telecommunications, Bar. Amina Adebayo-Shittu called on the students at the event to exploits opportunities to make themselves part of the ICT revolution the world is witnessing.
She advised that girls who find themselves in school without facilities to learn ICT should visit nearby ICT hubs to meet with up like minds, to learn beyond the four walls of their schools.

Speaking as a role model to girls with interest in ICT, National Coordinator, Office for ICT, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NITDA), Dr. Amina Sambo-Magaji, encouraged students at the event to not only seek the right degrees in ICT, but to also get involved in practical knowledge of ICT solutions.

   Sambo-Magaji opined that her studying a PhD in Artificial Intelligence is proof that any girl committed to her studies and assisted with right support system in her family can make a mark in ICT.

Earlier on Monday 78 girls drawn from FGC Bwari, Baptist High School Abuja, Great Heights Academy, Chrisland High School Abuja, Sheik Abubakar Gumi Academy Abuja and GSS Abuja participated in a HTML and Scratch Programming competition, following a workshop. An SS3 student from Sheik Abubakar Gumi Academy, Miss Aisha Aliyu clinched the first position.

She was rewarded with an iPad and N100,000 cash. Other students who emerged among the top seven received other prizes, even as the first female professor of Computer Science, Mrs. Adeyinka Onyinlola was honored at the event.