Over 30 students from the Legacy Girls College have paid an educational visit to Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) to familiarize themselves with its operations. This is in recognition of GCNet as the ICT Company engaged in the provision of electronic solutions at the heart of government’s digitisation journey.

The students who were led by their teaching staff had the opportunity to learn about the smart integrated electronic solutions which foster trade development, boost business competitiveness and improve ease of doing business as well as increase revenue mobilisation for national development for the benefit of the citizenry.

The students were taken on a guided tour of the facilities of GCNet including its Tier III Data Centre, Network Operating Centre, its new state of the art Cyber Security Laboratory and allied infrastructure.

The students were also told of the critical role played by GCNet in the deployment and integration of systems in the new terminal 3 project, which has transformed the maritime industry in the West African sub region.

Receiving the students and faculty of Legacy Girls College, Human Resources Manager of GCNet, Mrs. Akosua Asamoah expressed the hope that with ICT increasingly being used across the continent to empower women, it will engender increased participation of girls, especially underprivileged females into Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to overcome the phenomenon of gender stereotypes.

She recounted an encouraging development in Rwanda where a group of adolescent girls go to schools to inspire more girls to choose ICT as a profession. Mrs. Asamoah emphasised that this would go a long way to motivate girls to make the most of the opportunities that ICT skills and knowledge provide.

During a courtesy call on the General Manager of GCNet, Mr. Alwin Hoegerle, he encouraged the girls to take their studies in ICT seriously since the world was now revolving around digital innovations.

The students also expressed their gratitude for the opportunity given them and noted they felt fulfilled with the visit to gain practical insight and looked forward to more of such tours in the future.

In Ghana, the Ministry of Communications has been spearheading a campaign to encourage more girls to pursue life-long professions in the field of ICT with interventions such as the National Girls in ICT Day, similar to the International Girls in ICT Day, observed on the fourth Thursday in April every year with firm support from the ITU.

GCNet has been recognised as the Trade Facilitation Organisation and the pioneer Single Window operator for the past 17 years at the centre of Ghana’s digitization journey with the provision of the platform and infrastructure that networks all parties to a single-window platform, ensuring efficiency, transparency and security in the trade facilitation and revenue mobilization ecosystem.

GCNet has continued to leverage on technology to reshape the trade facilitation and revenue mobilization space with an end- to- end smart e-solution for clearance at the ports and a unique position to provide a broad overview of business registration, domestic taxation and international customs duties.