International Girls in ICT Day has celebrated annually around the world with the purpose to raise awareness on the growing importance of digital skills to pursue successful professional careers across sectors.

In order to expose women to the opportunities available in the ICT space, MTN Ghana in collaboration with Soronko Academy has taken another judicious step by organizing Tech mentorship session for about 50 female students from LA Bawaleshie Presby School in Accra.

MTN Ghana seized the opportunity to usher these female students into the tech business as the world celebrates International Girls in ICT Day.

In an interview with the Senior Manager, Corporate Communications at MTN Ghana, Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu, she noted that as an organisation with a vision to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world, the celebration of this day is important to them.

This is the main reason MTN Ghana Foundation partnered with Soronko Foundation to organize this monitoring session for these female students.

“We hope that this mentorship session will give you the platform to pursue courses that will lead to careers in ICT and other engineering fields;” she said.

According to her, only 20% of technology jobs in leading technology firms are held by women. This she said, the statistic of female participation in ICT Jobs must change.

This she said, there is the need to encourage more girls to pursue careers in ICT and engineering in Ghana and across the globe.

“To our girls, nurture your interest in the ICT industry, take advantage of the opportunity, learn new skills, be innovative and go out there to challenge the status quo,” she inspired.

Mrs Georgina Asare Fiagbenu also advised parents/guardians to always encourage their girls to veer into careers in ICT.

The Chief Executive Officer of Soronko Academy Regina Honu disclosed that there is a huge gender gap when it comes girls in ICT.

This she said three-quarters of staff in ICT technology in technology firms globally are male; which means that only one quarter are women.

Tech Needs Girls is a mentorship program where we teach girls from 6-18years to code and create technology.

We trained over 5000 girls in 8 regions in Ghana and expanded our impact to Burkina Faso in partnership with Tuares.

Adding that, the initiative will go a long way to help them to become economically independent in life.

“Already we are a seeing a positive sign since some them have started their own online business and they are making it life,” she hinted.