Africa

3828587921?profile=originalHundreds of Leaders to Gather in Accra for Inaugural Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology, 13-14 September, 2016

● African policymakers and technology leaders - including some of the continent’s most prominent women -  will meet to determine the policy steps needed to close Africa’s growing digital gender gap, which is the largest in the world

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


Over 200 of Africa’s leading technology innovators are scheduled to gather September 13-14 in Accra, Ghana at the Labadi Beach Hotel for the inaugural Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology .
 
The two-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:

Dr. Omobola Johnson, former Nigerian Minister of Communication Technology
Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne
Angelique Weeks, Chairperson of the Liberia Telecommunications Authority           
Anne Githuku Shongwe, Founder and CEO of Afroes Interactive Learning
Nnenna Nwakanma of the World Wide Web Foundation

Sessions will highlight the need for gender-responsive ICT policy in Africa, and will aim to design the solutions needed to enable millions of African women and girls to benefit from greater access to technology, and to use their skills to build a better Africa for all.

The 2016 Summit will also feature the launch of a new framework from the Web Foundation to audit the digital gender gap, along with 10 country-specific assessments that analyse the policy efforts and progress made across these countries toward reducing barriers to women’s online access and use.   

The Inaugural Africa Summit on Women and Girls in Technology is a collaboration between the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) , The World Wide Web Foundation , The Ghana -India Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT (AITI -KACE) , The African Development Bank , and UN Women. 

For more information, visit a4ai.org and follow A4AI on Twitter at @A4A_Internet and follow the conversation online through the hashtag #TechWomenAfrica .

About the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI): The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is the world’s broadest technology sector coalition. Initiated by the World Wide Web Foundation in 2013, the Alliance today comprises over 80 member organisations from across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. These diverse actors have come together to advance the shared aim of affordable, universal access to both mobile and fixed-line Internet in developing countries, primarily through policy and regulatory change. A4AI’s global sponsors include Google, USAID and SIDA. For more, please visit: a4ai.org

About the World Wide Web Foundation: Established by the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Foundation seeks to establish the open Web as a global public good and a basic right, creating a world where everyone, everywhere can use the Web to communicate, collaborate and innovate freely. Represented by more than a dozen nationalities working from hubs in London, Washington DC and Cape Town, the World Wide Web Foundation operates at the confluence of technology and human rights, targeting three key areas: Access, Voice and Participation. For more, visit: webfoundation.org

About AITI-KACE: The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), Ghana's first Advanced Information Technology Institute works to stimulate the growth of the ICT Sector in ECOWAS. Established in 2003, through a partnership between the Government of Ghana and the Government of India, this state-of-the-art facility provides a dynamic environment for innovation, teaching and learning as well as practical research on the application of ICT4D in Africa.

About the African Development Bank: T he African Development Bank Group (AfDB) is a multilateral development finance institution established to contribute to the economic development and social progress of African countries. The overarching objective of the AfDB is to spur sustainable economic development and social progress in its regional member countries (RMCs), thus contributing to poverty reduction, and works to do this by mobilising and allocating resources for investment, and by providing policy advice and technical assistance to support development efforts.

About UN Women: UN Women is the organization within the United Nations System responsible for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. It works in over 80 countries and with governments, UN partners, civil society and private sector partners to advance women’s rights through advocacy, policy and concrete actions on the ground. UN Women focuses on women’s economic empowerment, ending violence against women and women’s political participation and leadership. ICT for development is a cross-cutting area of work and critical to women’s empowerment in the digital age. UN Women is committed to ensuring that women are actively leading, contributing to and benefitting from the digital revolution. For more information, visit http://www.unwomen.org

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