Women Empowerment through ICT

Discussion2: How can ICT make a difference in empowering women? How can the gender issue be mainstreamed in ICT policies and strategies? Should it be mainstreamed?

Every one and a half month, we arrange online discussion related to women in ICT. http://www.dgroups.org/groups/WITNepal

It is a hard truth that the majority of the poor are women and they experience vulnerability and powerlessness to a much higher degree than men. Equitable access to ICT technology and the autonomy to receive and produce the information relevant to their concerns and perspectives are therefore critical issues for women. ICT for the vast majority of women in developing countries is not feasible for the foreseeable future. Until they know the importance of ICT and how it can empower them, women will still lag behind.

Take a look at how mobile telephony and the Internet have revolutionized the way we work, learn, interact and relax. Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunications are changing our way of life. ICTs are here to stay because we live in the age where quality access to information and knowledge is a key to survival and performance.

So, how can ICT empower women? How can gender be mainstreamed in ICT policies and strategies? Discussion on dgroup came up with some probable answers and solutions as prior.

Summery on the second discussion:

Women Empowerment through ICT: What is the role of ICT in the economic and social development of women? This issue touches all facet of society. Information and communication technologies could give a major boost to the political and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality. Women must be active ICT participants - users, professionals, creators, producers and entrepreneurs. To make a difference, women must engage in productive ICT and ICT-driven activities – usage and production.

Equal representation: Should aim to develop a more equitable representation, not only in terms of ratios but also in terms of responsibilities and authority. This “engendered” participation at a high level of decision-making will ensure that women are no longer subjected to be passive consumers of services offered to them but rather enable women to play a decisive role in deciding the kind of services they want and the structures and strategies which could best address the needs of women in society and community.

Capitalize and leverage usage of ICT capabilities: Potential of ICT will only be realized if the gender dimensions of the Information Society – in terms of users’ needs, conditions of access, policies, applications and regulatory frameworks – are properly understood and adequately addressed by all stakeholders.

Easy access and control: Access refers to the ability to make use of the technology as well as the information and knowledge it provides, while control refers to the ability to decide how ICTs are used and who can have access to them. Effective use refers to the ability of women and girls to use ICTs strategically to advance social development goals. Without real access to technology, there is a limit to how and what women can contribute. Access needs to improve – availability and quality. More women, especially in the rural and informal sector, need to use ICT to get things done in their lives and work. Better access to information and the ability to tap into the benefits of ICT enables women to be more competitive.

Gender defined role: Women must combine simultaneously two jobs – the professional and the domestic. So, it is difficult for them to manage time.

Absence from decision making process: Although the number of women in jobs involving ICT expertise is constantly rising, the same is not necessarily true of women’s access to decision-making and control of these resources. Women are under-represented in all ICT decision-making structures, including policy and regulatory institutions, ministries responsible for ICTs, and boards and senior management of private ICT companies. Decision making in ICTs is generally treated as a purely technical area (typically for male experts), where civil society viewpoints are given little or no space, rather than as a political domain.

ICT policies and strategies: The policy and strategies during the policy implementation should focus on creating competent women who can contribute in the revision of these policies document, avoiding a situation where most of the policies are formulated by patriarchal mindset.

Women have minimal presence. Why?

Discussion: In the Field of ICT, Women have minimal presence. Why?

Summary:
In the field of ICT, in Nepal, we are well aware of the minimal participation of women. Many of the well-known prominent figures in ICT market are all men. And, when we do come across some women, they mostly happen to occupy positions at the lower level in the organizational hierarchy. And this is not only the scenario in the job market. In ICT courses, the percentage of girls enrolled is also very disappointing.

Take the case of Institute of Engineering (IOE) for example. In IOE, one of the most reputed institutions in Nepal, there are only 23 girls out of total of 1700 students enrolled in ICT related subjects. That’s roughly around 1.3%. This figure itself speaks volume.

So, why are women less represented in ICT sector? What are they afraid of? What are the barriers for their entry? We at Bellanet initiated a discussion on dgroups so as to come up with possible answers to the lower participation and representation of women in ICT arena.

Some of the possible reasons discussed by the dgroup members are:

1. Lack of confidence
Women are fearful of competing with male counterparts. This may be due to lack of self-confidence among women. Women’s lack of awareness and lack of access to information about their rights has made them vulnerable to subordination, exploitation and abuse.

2. Socio-cultural factor
Numerous invisible barriers limit women’s and girls’ participation in the Information Society. Women have not been raised and trained to engage in science and technology. The way a girl child is brought up, compared to boy child, is also a factor that makes a girl hesitant to choose a career in ICT. From childhood, a girl is taught to focus more in household chores rather than building their career. They are discouraged from studying science and technology, either consciously or unconsciously, by parents’ and teachers’ biases.

3. Fear of technology
By law of nature itself, women are more into traditional sciences like biology, literature rather than technology-related subjects like networking and IT. This may be due to fear of technology which is also referred to as “technophobia”. As a result, women are mostly concentrated in assembly and clerical work, while only a few are engaged in computer systems administration and technical development. Women in low-grade technical and service jobs also make up the largest group of computer users. Men continue to crowd out women in training for higher skilled work.

4. Illiteracy
Women make up nearly two-thirds of the world’s illiterate and 1 out of every 2 women in developing countries is illiterate. Consequently, women are more likely to lack the basic literacy and computer skills than men that would enable them to take advantage of new global communication.

5. Lack of role models
There is a lack of women role models in the field of ICT. As such, an urgent need is there to come up with success stories and case studies highlighting the victories of women so as to encourage other women to take up career in the field of ICT. There should be documentation and sharing of best cases to convince women, for example the cases of SEWA, MSSRF, ENRD etc. They can be influential in terms of providing female learners with new role models, and opening up horizons.

6. Gender insensitive ICT environment
In Nepal, there is no gender friendly ICT environment. Women are underrepresented in all decision-making structures in the ICT sector, and this undermines the negotiation of gender-sensitive investment decisions and introduction of innovative patterns, policies and standards in the ICT sector. There needs to lobbying with the government for gender friendly ICT policies, so more women are encouraged to participate in information society.

7. Gender sensitive technology:
Women not only need to have greater control over such new technologies, but these technologies in and of themselves need to be shaped and developed in a manner that they reduce women’s work burden, challenge existing gender hierarchies and empower/attract women.

8. Lack of sufficient networking
Women themselves are not realising the importance of the use of ICT. Gaining access to information and communication technologies will not, in itself, contribute to women’s advancement and social development.


Conclusions:
In summary, to increase the presence of women in the field of ICT can be grouped in five prior the discussions. First, there is a need of awareness about the benefits to be gained from information and communication technologies and the uses to which they can be put. Secondly, literacy and basic education for women is needed. Women must not be left behind in the gap between those with and without access to the new information technologies, and must be prevented from predominating among the information-poor. Third, Participation of women in senior decision-making positions and politically influential positions in the ICT sector should be encouraged. Women should be actively involved in ensuring the potential of ICTs as directed towards promoting human well-being rather than existing power monopolies. Fourth, Stereotyped views of women’s skills and abilities should be discouraged as women have made inroads into skilled jobs as software programmers or computer analysts. Such success stories should be documented so they can be influential in terms of providing female learners with new role models, and opening up horizons. Fifth, Technologies themselves need to be shaped and developed so as to promote livelihood and attract more women.

'Women in ICT' web portal launched

There is a gr8 news for people who have been involved in 'Women in ICT' project since its inception. The web portal, highlighting the concept, community members, their activities etc. have finally been launched.

Follow the link http://www.womeninict.org/ to chk out this initiation.

Cheers ;-)

Professionalism Enhancement in Web Development and Hardware Basics

Women are dynamic, creative and equipped of skills of multi-tasking. There is strong will power of women and can make drastic changes if she desires. Creativity of women can be best implied in different sectors including web development provided she has some opportunities to learn from women who have devoted their career in Web Development and Hardware.

It is our immense pleasure to share Women in ICT Network in collaboration of BellaSAP is providing a platform for women to learn and share their own work experiences in the field of web development along with basic computer hardware maintenance. It is anticipated that this 45 days training will support in promoting professionalism of women in the areas of Web Development and Hardware Basics and perhaps make a small attempt in enhancing the functional presence of women in IT arena of Nepal.

The training course will include:
Graphics Design/Web Designing (Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Swish) - 17 Days
Knowledge about Latest Trends For eg. Blog, Wiki & CMS System etc.
Computer Hardware (Hardware basics and Basic Troubleshooting) - 17 Days
Basic Web Scripting (PHP and ASP).- 11 Days
The formal training program will also be accompanied by different guest speakers for sharing their experiences in promoting quality participation of women in Information Society of Nepal.

The training program details are:
Venue: Seagate Computers, Kupondole
Duration: July 15-August 31, 2007
Time: 6:00-8:00 am Contact person: Ms. Archana Shrestha,


Note: There will be no registration fee for the training. However, organizers are not in able to support travel and accommodation cost for the participants due to budget constraints.

"Women in ICT" report published

On December 19-20, SAP International and Bellanet Asia, along with KCM and CAN, had organized a 2-day workshop on "Women in ICT: In Search of Identity". Following the workshop, the BellaSAP team was busy working on the workshop report. And now it is finally complete. To those interested, you can even download the pdf version of the report here.

Click here to download the report

Women in ICT workshop

As a first step in our "Women in ICT" project, we organized a "Women in ICT: In Search of Identity" workshop on 19-20 December 2006 at SAP Falcha. Due to the bandh called on 19th Dec, we almost had to postpone the workshop. Nevertheless, we decided to go ahead with our schedule and indeed it was a good decision for significant number of participants turned up despite the disruption. The second day was also a fruitful one due to the presence of some key personalities.

The main question that our workshop focused on was "Why are women left behind in the ICT movement?". Discussions focused around the issue andwe were able to come up with quite a few strategies to address this issue, thanx to the valuable inputs and suggestions of the participants.

Another key feature of the workshop was the knowledge sharing mechanism that we used. Open Space methodology that we used to facilitate the discussions was appreciated and liked by all the participants. Also,setting up wiki stations was a key example of appropriation of technology.

All in all, the workshop was a satifying experience for us all.

A small initiative

IT field in Nepal is a booming industry. Today, no one industry can remain isolated from the developments in the field of IT. Be it banking sector, or hotel industry, or tourism, or software houses, IT is playing a vital role everywhere. With many IT firms opening up and many projects being outsourced to Nepal, IT promises to have a good future.

Nevertheless, I have found that not many girls/women are interested to pursue a career in IT. What maybe the reasons? If its the pressure of the job, then what job doesn't have pressure? If you are to survive in this competitive world, you have got to have a will and the capability to handle pressures. If it is the odd hours that the IT jobs demand, then there are always other options within the IT industry. In fact, IT jobs are more flexible, in terms that you can even work from the comforts of your home.

I feel that we have narrowed our horizon in terms of IT. Whenever we talk of IT jobs, we restrain ourselves to programming or designing or networking jobs. But IT is much beyond that.

In order to analyze the reasons for lower participation of females in IT sector, we have initiated a project titled "Women in IT". With this initiative, we hope be better able to know why girls do not view IT jobs as a promising and rewarding career.