International Girls in ICT Day

I think we can do better...

Recently, on Mother's Day, my children helped me prepare breakfast in bed for my wife. While the tea was steeping, they asked me when Father's Day was. Although I did not know the answer, I was nonetheless very pleased by their question. I quickly checked online and told them.

A few minutes later, as we were carrying the breakfast, they posed a question to the two of us:

"When is Children's Day? How come we do not get to celebrate Children's Day?"

...

They were not too convinced with our answer that the remaining 363 days of the year were Children's Days.

The fourth Thursday in April is celebrated and commemorated as International Girls in ICT Day. It is an excellent initiative led by ITU and backed by ITU member states via a resolution they passed in 2014.

A few years ago, UNICC started a partnership with ITU in New York. The two organizations started by strongly supporting WiTNY (Women in Tech, New York), which is now called Break Through Tech New York along with several other sister organizations like UNWomen. We joined a strong roster of like minded private sector organizations. We were lucky to find an excellent set of Interns and Winterns over several semesters, and were inspired to find more and more ways to partner with ITU on these initiatives.

Our partnership with ITU has grown from strength to strength and the latest evidence of this was the celebration / social media challenge launched this year where Women in Tech were asked to share their journey in Tech and what the Girls in ICT Day meant to them.

This has now led to an effort called Talking Tech. Women Leaders in Technology are invited to talk to younger women in a series of interviews that are being recorded and made available on YouTube. A series of these interviews are being planned, organized and made available. One excellent interview, for example, features the dynamic CIO of the World Food Programme, Enrica Porcari (who, luckily for us, also happens to be the Chair of the UNICC Management Committee). Other interviews that have been released include female colleagues from UNICC.

As the shared services IT organization created by the UN General Assembly to support the UN System, UNICC has to do its part to encourage girls and young women to see a future for themselves in Technology.

In parting, I would like to share this Tweet put out by the super Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau at ITU, and who leads the International Girls in Tech initiative. I loved the enthusiasm and positivity that shines through from her and her family in this lovely GIF they created to celebrate the day.

May we all find our own ways to celebrate and encourage more and more women and girls to join Tech. And unlike Father's Day, this should be celebrated not just one day in the year but every day, as that will make a real impact on these future women leaders.