AfChix - Women in Technology Group

Background

The AfChix Mailing list is composed of a group of African Chix (Women) in Computer Science / Information Technology that was previously called Linux Chix Africa (since 2004) and participants of the AfNOGChix series of workshops (since 2007). Linux Chix Africa was the brainchild of Dorcas Muthoni and Anna Badimo - two great African women in Computer Science / Information Technology that had a dream of how to support women in Computer Science / Information Technology to prosper. This group has since evolved to what is now called AfChix and its activities have been championed by Dorcas Muthoni with a focus on the following:

1. Career Fairs in Kenya targeting high school girls with the objective of enticing them to take up careers in Computer Science and related areas
2. Support for women to attend global and regional Computer Science / Information Technology related conferences for exposure
3. Targeted partnerships for training women in technical fields such as Linux Systems Administration, Network Infrastructure & Services, Internet Education among others
4. Management of the Afchix mailing list to share information and opportunities with women in Computer Science / Information Technology.

Purpose of the AfChix Group

The goal of AfChix is to create a vibrant network of African Women in Computer Science and related areas for the purpose of supporting each other. Specific objectives include the following:

1. Facilitate networking and sharing of opportunities with women in Computer Science / Information Technology - recognizing that there is power in purposeful collaboration and networking.
2. Establish a platform for mentorship targeting upcoming young women in Computer Science / Information Technology.
3. Identify opportunities and broker partnerships for professional training / development and exposure of women in Computer Science / Information Technology

Our website is: http://www.afchix.org/ and our blog is: http://afchix.blogspot.com/

The African Centre for Women, Information and Communications Technology is a pioneer Kenyan based Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) Organization with a regional reach whose mission is to promote women’s access to and use of ICTs as tools for social, economic and political advancement.

ACWICT’s programs are designed to be highly flexible and scalable. The programs can support scaling-up by supporting creation of additional community technology learning centres, identifying additional thematic areas, specifying age groups, and entrepreneurial activities, technologies [ICTs] adopted, training modules, numbers of people, income levels and geographical coverage amongst others.

Into their educational programs are:
The Women innovative Teachers Program (IWT): The program aims to build the capacity of women teachers in ICT while at the same time addressing the issues affecting Girl Child education in Kenya. The Innovative Women Teachers Program is expected to reach 150,000 women primary and secondary school teachers in Kenya by a phased implementation strategy. The Program is based on a Trainer of trainees (ToT) approach in which Bachelor of Education alumna from various Kenyan universities are trained at the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) and deployed to train female teachers in the countryside.

All Girls ICT Training: The camps are a capacity building / mentoring initiative by ACWICT which are run during every school holiday are aimed at promoting science and technology as a career path for young women in high school. The camps help the participants improve their performance in mathematics and science subjects and acquire Information and Communication Technology skills. They also learn how the internet works and how they can deploy it as a tool for learning.

Techno Serves Young Women in Enterprise (YWE) Program seeks to raise the level of entrepreneurial activity among Kenya’s young women–particularly the most disadvantaged, to catalyze the start up of employment-generating, women-owned small enterprises. YWE is designed to provide young women ages 15 to 22 years with support, skills, and experience needed to transform ideas into successful enterprises. 

In a continent where women form a majority of the population and half of the workforce, it is an anomaly that the percentage of women working in technology is less than 15%. Technology is one of the key factors driving Africa’s projected economic rise. As such, there is enormous potential for maximizing the growth of technology through increasing the number and quality of women in technology. That is where Akirachix comes in.
AkiraChix aims to inspire and develop a successful force of women in Technology that will change Africa’s future. They plan to do this through their key programs areas of networking, mentorship and training.
The training program aims at giving these girls IT skills that would enable them sustain themselves. The inaugural set of students, who joined this program in August of 2010, recently graduated, on the 6th of August 2011, after a year of taking courses that ranged from basic computer packages, to programming and design concepts, as well as entrepreneurship and business development.
Started the AkiraChix Training program, teaching programming and web development skills to 29 young women. Recognized with the Unsung Heroes award by the US Embassy in Nairobi on International Women’s Day 2011.
Mobile Garage is a program funded by Infodev and to be implemented by Akirachix. The aim of the program is to create sustainable businesses for the knowledge economy through mobile applications for development, business incubation and technology entrepreneurship.
“We are intelligent and we bring all our energy together to help and inspire the greater community of ladies out there”.

The APNG Camp is where future internet leaders in the AP region meet. Participants are young internet researchers, programmers and volunteers from Asia Pacific.   Fellowships are available for international and local students.
Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG) (http://www.apng.org) is a non-profit Internet organization dedicated to the advancement of networking infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region and to the research and development of all associated enabling technologies.

Asian Science Camps aim at enlightening science talented youths through discussion and dialogue with top scholars in the world, and to promote international friendship and cooperation among the best young students in the Asian region.  These are annual events and the theme changes yearly.

AWISE is a national communications umbrella that forms a collaborative voice connecting Technology Networks for Women. The AWISE Goals are: Help individual networks achieve their goals faster, better and cheaper; National single point of contact; Encourage more females into technology based industries; share information and initiatives; Centralized national body to influence government and media and Obtain national funding to support agreed initiatives.

BlackGirlsCode is devoted to showing the world that black girls can code, and do so much more. By reaching out to the community through workshops and after school programs, BlackGirlsCode introduces computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented communities in programming languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. BlackGirlsCode has set out to prove to the world that girls of every color have the skills to become the programmers of tomorrow. By promoting classes and programs we hope to grow the number of women of color working in technology and give underprivileged girls a chance to become the masters of their technological worlds.

BlackGirlsCode is proud to say we’ve completed our first year as an organization, during which time we had the honor of bringing technology and entertainment to many wonderful young girls of color. By teaching the girls programming and game design, we hope to have started the lifelong process of developing in them a true love for technology and the self-confidence that comes from understanding the greatest tools of the 21st century.

And though we at BlackGirlsCode cannot overstate our happiness with the results of our classes, this is just the first step in seeking to bridge the digital divide. The digital divide, or the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital technology and those without, is becoming an increasingly critical problem in society. As more and more information becomes electronic, the inability to get online can leave entire communities at an extremely dangerous disadvantage.

Sadly, San Francisco’s digital divide falls along the same racial and social fault lines that characterize so many of society’s issues. White households are twice as likely to have home Internet access as African American houses. Bayview Hunters Point, Crocker Amazon, Chinatown, Visitacion Valley, and the Tenderloin have significantly lower rates of home technology use than the rest of the city. Sixty-six percent of Latinos report having a home computer, as opposed to 88 percent of Caucasians.            

Through community outreach programs such as workshops and after school programs, we introduce underprivileged girls to basic programming skills in languages like Scratch and Ruby on Rails. Introducing young black girls to these skills gives them an introduction to today’s computer technology, an essential tool for surviving in the 21st century. The skills they acquire through the programs give these young women a chance at well-paying professions with prestigious companies, as well as the ability to enter into the field as an entrepreneurs and leaders of technology.

“Imagine. Build. Create.” has always been our motto at BlackGirlsCode. The digital divide is steadily eroding, but if we want to create truly universal access to technology, San Francisco needs to come together as a community.  Imagine a world where everyone is given the tools to succeed, and then help us build ways for everyone to access information and create a new age of women of color in technology.   

Summer camp hosted by the University of Waterloo for girls in grades 9 and 10 that aims to spark interest in computer science and challenge stereotypes and barriers to women‘s participation in computer science.

Children’s Technology Workshop (CTWorkshop) teaches children to design and use software and applications and trains children in computer use and programming.

Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G) – a fun way to inspire and motivate 9 to 14 year old girls with, and through, ICT. Featuring girl-centric topics like music, fashion and celebrity, CC4G develops skills through games and challenges.

Students gain an insight into the relevance of IT and a better understanding of career options from real-world examples and interaction with employers. e-skills UK has worked with employers, as well as educational professionals, to ensure CC4G supports girls in developing the IT skills that will equip them for working life.