Our Miss.Africa Digital Program Named Finalist in the ITU/UN 2017 EQUALSinTech Awards in Geneva, Switzerland 
 
DCA News Alert 
Geneva, Switzerland: ITU and UN Women this week announced the Miss.Africa Digital program as one of 15 Finalists and the Winners for the prestigious 2017 EQUALS in Tech Awards. 

As the flagship event of the EQUALS global network partnership, the annual award event is designed to showcase how ICTs can be used to dramatically improve social, political and economic outcomes for women and girls - and the value that women and girls bring to the technology sectors.
 
"ITU is proud to recognize those honored here today who are dedicated to bridging the global digital gender divide," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. "Their drive, passion and innovation help to unleash the power of information and communication technology for the benefit of the many. Each time we bring more women and girls online, not only do we take one more step towards achieving gender equality, but we accelerate the implementation of all the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals."

In her video address to attendees, Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General said, "New tech needs to be available to all for the benefit of all, our sustainable future depends on bridging the digital gender divide. Let's work together to empower role models who can inspire women and girls everywhere."
 
The awards are part of the EQUALS Global Partnership, a network of more than 50 partner companies and organizations working together to bridge the digital gender divide, and co-founded by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), UN Women, the International Trade Centre, GSMA and the United Nations University and hosted by IGF.   The 2017 Equals in Tech Awards ceremony was held in Geneva, Switzerland, during the Internet Governance Forum, 19 December 2017.    This year's awards were supported by the Internet Society, the Government of Switzerland and Facebook  
   
This year, there were 293 participants from 72 countries for the EQUALS in Tech Awards. From these, 15 finalists including our Miss.Africa digital, a Pan-African programme to promote digital skills for women across the continent were selected representing the most innovative and inspiring initiatives that have realized significant results in working to bridge the digital gender divide as well as bring digital tech opportunities  The results of these initiatives has realized real change in the communities that they serve and have opened up doors for women to critical digital financial and social benefits.
   
Prizes are awarded for outstanding achievement and innovative strategies is three (3) categories :
SKILLS, ACCESS and LEADERSHIP. 
Nominations in the SKILLS Category support the development of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.    Miss.Africa Digital, is the only African organization to be named a finalist in the SKILLS category for the Equals in Tech Awards.
 
Below is a QnA by ITU with our Founder as a finalist discussing our program, as reproduced from ITU News
ITU News recently caught up with Sophia Bekele, the Founder and CEO of  DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Group, a Kenya based organization that runs the Miss.Africa program and administers the Seed Fund grants and awards.

She explains what Miss.Digital Africa is all about in the Q&A below.
Click to watch finalist video
1. Can you tell us about this project that has been nominated for the EQUALS in Tech Awards?
 
The Miss.Africa Digital program is the first Pan African initiative to support women in technology. It is private trust that aims to encourage African women all across the continent to embrace technology while developing a range of skills.

Our most popular Miss.Africa Annual Seed Fund competition is run Africa-wide, and provides grants to women and girls that have submitted original projects in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The grant assists these women to launch or further support their own initiatives.  The objective is to increase women's leadership in Africa by enhancing their digital skills and access to jobs.

The Seed Fund competition program is in its third year and has had a meaningful impact in Madagascar, Kenya, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

2. What are some of the challenges you are trying to address with your project?

The Miss.Africa Digital Program aims to develop hands-on solutions to Africa's many needs through innovation and technology inclusion.

Our approach is to first bridge the digital gender divide by providing girls and women with skills that give them the ability to develop intelligent local solutions to their everyday challenges. These are often the solutions society needs for sustainable development.
Many students leave university with no employment opportunities. Our program aims to inspire self-employment.
By funding initiatives that empower women in far-flung areas in Africa, we also encourage local skills development and reduce migration to cities.

Employment and revenue-making opportunities are still few in many parts of Africa. Many students leave university with no employment opportunities. Our program aims to inspire self-employment.

Education institutions have been slow in developing STEM programs, especially as a means to promote gender equality.  Through awareness raising, partnerships, and funding mechanisms, the Miss.Africa program helps to create and accelerate the development of STEM programs in these institutions.

3.  How are you bringing innovative approaches to these problems?

The Miss.Africa Digital programme leverages available technologies to expand its outreach and runs a number of communications activities and training programs, such as:

a) Sharing success stories and experiences of women-in-tech through Miss.Africa Voices, a regular online video journal.

b) Echoing these voices through multilingual social media platforms, weekly ICT digests and periodic newsletters that run in English, French and Arabic.

c) Providing women with rigorous ICT training, internet literacy and life skills through our in-house digital academy internship program.

d) Encouraging the involvement of women in the STEM disciplines through the annual Seed Fund competition.

e) Enabling the winning start-ups and early stage initiatives to have access to private equity investments and to grow and monetize their business plans through an innovative business incubation program we aim to start next year.

4. Can you explain why skills for women in tech is so important?

An African proverb states, 'If you educate a woman, you educate a family (or nation)'.  Skills in tech for women are important because women bring an important perspective.

According to the World Economic Forum, women hold only 26 percent of all tech jobs. If current gender gap trends persist, women are at risk of losing out on tomorrow's best jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities. Women's digital skills must be developed to increase their chances to be hired in industry roles.

Skills development can help women increase their individual opportunities through increased job placement and entrepreneurship, leading to gender equality and economic development.

The world is operating in a digital and mobile environment.  The development of tech skills, adequate financing and policy coherence are important to enable women to have options.

5.  How does it feel to gain international recognition from ITU and UN Women for your work?

Miss.Africa Digital programme is greatly excited and honored to be selected as a finalist by ITU and UN Women out of a pool of nearly 300 nominations from around the globe.

We feel inspired and encouraged to continue leading and innovating to increase the number of women in tech and accomplish our mission of bridging the STEM gap in Africa.

We trust that the experiences we share from our current cohorts and alumni will reveal how developing the digital skills of women and girls has a positive impact and will inspire people around the world. Our partners and supporters will also be motivated to do more to keep our programs alive. Most important, our Miss.Africa beneficiaries will walk taller through this recognition.
 
Sophia Bekele is the Founder and CEO of DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Group, a Kenya based organization that runs the Miss.Africa program and administers the Seed Fund grants and awards.
Miss.Africa Digital Program was among 15 Finalists in three (3) categories and was top five (5) and the only African entity in the SKILLS categories.   The 2017 winners were announced yesterday at the IGF 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. They include:- Lebanese Alternative Learning (Lebanon) in the ACCESS Category, Digital Citizen Fund (Afghanistan/US), SKILLS Category and Sula Batsu Cooperativa (Costa Rica) in the LEADERSHIP Category. Congratulations to all finalist and winners!!

About the Miss.Africa Digital Program:

The Miss.Africa digital Digital is a pan-African gender-focused initiative, targeted mainly at female youth audiences in Africa to increase their personal involvement in early technology use and adoption with a view to improving their digital self-awareness and empowerment, and overall self-esteem.The "Miss.Africa" digital program is envisioned as one of the central pillars of DotConnectAfrica Trust's corporate social responsibility program. It is aimed at attracting more young girls and women to the Internet platform to enable them form a sizable demographic of Internet users in Africa, thereby involving them in complementary gender development initiatives that improve the lives of young girls and women. 

The Miss.Africa program led by the DCA Academy, provides for the Seed Fund in Africa that will provide small grants to support women and girls in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields to launch or expand their own initiatives that will increase their digital opportunities in IT related training, jobs and leadership roles. The program is interested in learning about successful activities that are currently supporting women and girls in STEM, and through this effort, we identify how we might support scalability and their impacts.
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