Commemorating International Girls in ICT Day by #GirlsInICTechWeek

As I wrote in my post on LinkedIn, I've always wanted to do this - run a workshop for girls to teach them about ICT - but what about ICT? It is such a broad area and so much to learn from, that sometimes we may be saying too much, or too little, too diverse, too technical and our audience or participants will just end up being confused as they had started from.

So what about #GirlsInICTechWeek -- It is definitely the start of great things to come!! - that is my prediction! Having just ended the first ever #GirlsInICTechWeek in Kokopo, East New Britain has been such an overwhelming feeling.

Especially when you hear from 19 young female participants who are able to stand up and confidently share about something that they have learnt - which they never knew about before, or they knew but didn't know in detail - like - how a hard disk drive works, or what is a all-in-one-printer, what is it about 1's and 0's being so special in this industry and the list goes on. To hear them actually using these technical terms and acronyms that they never used before - such a great feeling to know that knowledge has been shared/imparted and passed on and for them to even be thinking about pursuing further studies in Computer Science/Computer Technology is an additional bonus!

A 1-week intense learning which included hands-on experience, a bit of theory, a bit of sharing from experienced people in the industry, especially from women who work in once considered male-dominated field - where safety boots are worn, a phillips screwdriver being your best friend and a room full of blue cables running here and there.

It was the first of its kind and the response has been positive - many more want to be a part of it! I'm so thankful for those who were able to support it, to NICTA (again an unknown acronym to one they now know) because of course without the funding, it couldn't have been possible and without the commitment of the 19 girls (should be 20) - it would never have eventuated either.

From Introduction to ICT concepts, to the types of professions, ICT in Papua New Guinea to the technical presentations of hardware and networking, coding and software, internet and WWW technology and the exciting site visits to the Communications Providers and ICT departments provided a holistic ICT learning for the participant.

Read about the International Girls in ICT day and also check out my other posts about the event.

We now looking forward to another 'first' - the first ever ICT expo in Kokopo, Papua New Guinea. A time when ICT companies and individuals and institutions can share, get together and promote their services and products to the community.

All for the love of ICT and for the purpose of getting more girls to choose careers and pursue further studies in ICT.

It is the Industry - the I.T. industry :D

p.s. They even got to hear about World Pulse and how it is a cool site for networking women and all were encouraged to create their profiles and journals.

am hoping that the next training I conduct is the Digital Literacy one by WorldPulse :D (thank you for the materials)