Director of MTN Ghana Foundation, Mrs. Cynthia Lumor, has stated that despite the strides being made by women professionals in Information Technology (IT), a lot more still needed to be done to increase the levels of women’s participation in the sector.
Speaking at the official MTN APP camp for girls in Accra yesterday, Mrs. Lumor said the new initiative seeks to encourage girls’ participation in the coding and computer programming, areas typically dominated by males.
Dubbed: MTN Girl Code: “Tech Camp for ladies going places,” it is a collaboration between MTN Ghana and Women in Tech Africa aimed at encouraging the next generation of women leaders to explore the opportunities that IT offers.
The MTN Girl Code project is focused on setting up an Apps Camp to train young females in mobile apps development, internet of things project development and animated video creation.
For this maiden edition of MTN Girl Code, participants would be selected from tertiary institutions in four regions—Greater Accra, Central, Ashanti and Northern. At the end of the camp, cash prizes would be awarded to the top finalists. More importantly, according to her, the best projects designed and developed from the programme areas would be selected for entry into the MTN Apps challenge.
“It is our hope that this project will strengthen the skills of existing and aspiring female developers, engineers and animation designers. “…it will also increase the number of females with the requisite skills to compete in future editions of the MTN Apps challenge,” she said.
Mrs. Lumor indicated that the project is aligned with MTN Ghana Foundation’s ambition to increase participation of women in the Apps challenge, from less than three per cent currently, to an appreciable percentage in the next three years.
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