ACM-W, with funding from Wipro Technologies, provides support for women undergraduate and graduate students in Computer Science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. Exposure to the CS research world can be an important factor in encouraging a student to continue on to the next level (Undergraduate to Graduate, Masters to Ph.D., Ph.D. to an industry or academic position).

Advancing ICT through scholarships and research. Provides extensive information on IT careers and scholarships, interviews with men and women who work in IT, Myths about women in ICT.

The goal of the ADVANCE program is to develop systemic approaches to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers, thereby contributing to the development of a more diverse science and engineering workforce. ADVANCE focuses on ensuring that women faculty with earned STEM degrees consider academia as a viable and attractive career option. This program does not support projects to increase or retain the number of women entering into or persisting in STEM doctoral degree programs.

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”.

Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

Contact:

http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=contact/contact

ABI develops tools and a broad range of programs and awards designed to help industry, academia and government recruit, retain and develop women technology leaders.

ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science encourage our female students to network with each other, as well as with their male colleagues, on a regular basis so that they build new networks and make new friends to support themselves and each other while studying (and beyond).

From time-to-time the College organises get-togethers for female students, and we particularly welcome their voluntary assistance for outreach programs to help other young women decide on a career in engineering and computer science.

More information can be found here:

https://cecs.anu.edu.au/current_students/wit

Network related to the Apache Software Foundation (open source)to help women become active in projects at Apache.