250 Women Storm Accra to Devise Solutions for Africa’s Growing Digital Gender Gap

Accra, Ghana, October 9, 2018//-Over 250 women from across the African continent’s tech industries will gather in Accra from October 9-11, 2018 for the second Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology to determine the policy steps needed to close Africa’s growing digital gender gap, which is the largest in the world.

We will soon pass a tipping point when 50% of the world is connected online, yet women remain amongst the least likely to be connected, which has far reaching consequences, according to organizers of the summit.

High-level panels, lightning talks and hands-on workshops will focus on issues around affordable broadband, digital skills and entrepreneurship, and women’s rights online.

The Summit — which comes at a crucial point in time when the world is set to reach 50% connectivity — aims to design solutions that will enable millions of African women and girls to benefit from access to technology and use their skills to build a better Africa for all.

The three-day event will feature lightning talks from young African female technologists, as well as high-level discussions with many of Africa’s most prominent ICT policymakers and technology leaders today, including Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister of Communications, Ghana; Dr Omobola Johnson, former Nigerian Minister of Communication Technology; Bitilokho Ndiaye, Gender Technical Advisor at Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, Posts and Digital Economy, Senegal; and many others.

Bridging the digital gender gap is a critical step toward the vision of a thriving Africa — yet research has shown that women in some communities are up to 50% less likely than men to be online.

In Africa, where nearly 75% of the population remains offline, this problem is particularly acute.

The Summit will explore a range of relevant topic areas, with a focus on developing policy to advance: access to affordable broadband; women’s rights online; digital education and skills; and digital entrepreneurship.

The 2018 Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology is collaboration among the World Wide Web Foundation, Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), Ghana Ministry of Communications, African Development Bank,Open? Society Initiative for West Africa, among others.

African Eye Report

 

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