Panel Discussion: The role of women in ICT

28/11/12

Changing the game: The role girls and women play in domestic internet economy.

After the full day of gathering content for our app "Food for thot" we were all invited to stay back for the Panel discussion on Women in ICT. While helping set the place up for the evening function I was notified that I will be one of the four panelists. The other three are also young women participants from this Forum.
The Key Note speaker was Mrs. Stephanie Danclair (Chief Operations Officer of Bright Path Foundation) and remarks were given by Katalaini Duaibe (from United Nations Women department).

I do not consider myself in the ICT sector so I was extremely nervous about being on the panel. But it was not that bad.

The first question was:
What do think about the development in Fiji and what role do you play in this? 
The developments taking place locally are escalating at different wavelengths and Youth development is huge. Young people are developing in all spheres of life. They are excelling in Education (experimenting with different types of careers, doing volunteer works, going abroad for studies and also engaging in vocational studies), Sports and Advocacy work as well. The Youth community uses the Internet for communicating and searching for information daily and they too become part of the ICT network in doing so.

What is my role in this? 
I thought that all this time I am not a part of the ICT world. But my blogs are also a big part of the ICT world. The blogs I write are also a big part of this ICT World. It is helping me connect the information I have to people in the wider community and most importantly with my Internet family.

The second question was:
What challenges do you face in your professional work and what are the solutions?
Challenges we face are one too many.
1) Time: Timing of events are usually in the evenings and many young women face difficulties in attending forums in the evening. One reason is because they have home commitments and the second reason being many of them do not feel safe to travel in the evening.
2) Being taken seriously is an issue. Just because we are 'youth' we do not have enough experience to make decisions - is a common myth!! Youth also have experience (even though it is not much) even if it experience of a few weeks, months or years.
3) As a tutor a challenge I have faced is the two set of students I have. The fresh out of high school students know more about ICT than I do, while the matured students face more difficulties. So I have to learn from the students on one end of the wavelength and try my level best to impart that information to the students on the other end of the wavelength.
4) Commitment - Not everyone shows the same level of commitment as you would want them to. This I have noticed in Youth groups and in Students. Weather it is doing community outreach or completing assignments some youth are very reluctant and leave things to be done last minute. A better time management system needs to utilized for effective results and for us to be taken seriously in the community.

There is a grave need to change the mindset of people regarding Youth and ICT and most importantly towards women in ICT.

Till bad internet connection do us part . . .
:-)