MTN Ghana Foundation in partnership with Women in Tech Africa, has taken a giant step by launching an initiative dubbed:“MTN Girl Code: Tech camp for ladies going places.”
This laudable initiative is aimed at encouraging young women to participate in coding and computer programming, areas typically dominated by males.
Research information from the Ministry of Finance website indicates that innovations and ICT are estimated to contribute about USD 750 million to Ghana’s GDP, representing a substantial 1% of GDP from a sub-sector.
Against this backdrop, MTN Ghana Foundation took a judicious step to partner with Women in Tech Africa, an organisation that supports Women in Technology across Africa to positively impact their Communities and to encourage the next generation of women leaders to explore the opportunities that IT offers and to pursue careers in the fast-growing Information Communication Technology industry.
Speaking at the launching ceremony the Director , of MTN Foundation , Mrs. Cynthia Lumor, noted that the MTN Girl Code project is focused on setting up an Apps Camp to train young females in Mobile Apps development, Internet of Things (IoT) project development, and Animated Video creation.
“At the end of the camp , cash prizes will be rewarded to the top finalist and most importantly the best project designed and developed from all three programmatic areas will be selected and entered into the MTN Apps Challenge ,” she explained.
According to her, this maiden edition of MTN Code , participants will be selected from tertiary institutions in four regions . Including: Greater Accra, Central, Ashanti and Northern regions.
It is our hope that by training more women in the Sector, the benefits of Apps development and ICT as a whole will be extended to the larger society and that ultimately, it will.improve the livelihood of people in communities across the country.
Mrs. Cynthia Lumor, stated unequivocally that, the project is aligned to MTN Ghana Foundation’s ambition to increase the participation of ladies in the MTN Apps Challenge from less than three percent currently to an appreciable percentage in the next three years .
“To the female university students who will have the opportunity to participate in the MTN Girl Code , I urge you to learn new skills , be innovative and then go out there to break the status quo by increasing the representation of girls in ICT in Ghana”, she challenged.
Mrs Ethel Cofie, Founder , Women in Tech Africa, also noted as a country there is
the need to the grow technology sector and technology entrepreneurs in order to boost economic development. According to her, Ghana as a country is really a fertile ground for technology and innovations .
She has therefore entreated all young ladies to embrace this laudable initiative in order to become the best Apps developers in the country.
Ms Farida Nana Efua Bedwei, a Software Engineer and Managing Director of Logiciel, also challenged the youth especially women to endeavour to turn their limitations into opportunities, thus looking at the problems around and being innovative enough to solve them. Since there are numerous challenges confronting the nation which ICT can solve.
By: Isaac Kofi Dzokpo/ News Ghana.com.gh