As, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN’s specialized agency for information and communications technology (ICT), I am personally committed to helping close the gender digital gap including actions within our organization itself. As one of the founding members of the Geneva Gender Champions initiative launched by the Director-General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, Michael Møller, and US Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto, I have taken the Panel Parity Pledge to adopt positive measures to improve gender balance among ITU staff, as well as encouraging gender balance among delegates attending ITU conferences and meetings.
I see the issue of gender equality in the tech sector as an urgent and priority issue, not simply a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have’.
There are 1.8 billion young people in the world today. Of these, 600 million are teenage girls and young women. Technology is creating large scale opportunities to empower women and girls. But when it comes to making career choices, the majority of countries around the world are witnessing a chronic global decline in the number of female tech students.
This is in turn contributing to a predicted global employment shortfall, with at least two million information and communication technology (ICT) jobs which will not be able to be filled, due to the lack of qualified staff. Like all challenges this also provides opportunity; enormous opportunity for governments, academia, industry and international organizations to work together to achieve gender parity in the highly imbalanced tech sector.
The ICT ecosystem needs to include more women, more women leaders, professionals, creators and entrepreneurs. It is because of this gap that since 2010, ITU has been encouraging its 193 Member States, more than 700 private sector members and 120+ members from academia to support and celebrate international Girls in ICT Day, which is held every year on the fourth Thursday in April.
The day is an important part of an international drive to encourage more female students to study STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – and to prepare for ICT careers. Led by ITU’s Development Sector, and with strong buy-in from the tech sector, national governments, academia and NGOs, ‘Girls in ICT Day’ has rapidly grown into a global movement, with an estimated 5,600 events organized in over 160 countries, reaching more than 200,000 girls. As ITU Secretary-General I would like to thank our growing community for their commitment and staunch support which has enabled ITU to become a major force in promoting and increasing opportunities for women and girls in ICT careers.
We’re delighted also to announce on 18 May 2016 a new call for nominations for the third annual GEM-Tech awards (GEM means Gender Equality and Mainstreaming) together with our sister agency UN Women. This prestigious global prize recognizes outstanding contributions from women and men (individuals and organizations) in further addressing the issue of digital gender divide issues by embracing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to promote greater gender equality to empower women and girls. Indeed, we were honoured to name Ambassador Hamamoto as a GEM-Tech Global Achiever in 2015 because of her leadership, including by establishing the Geneva Gender Champions.
These initiatives and awards can play an important role in highlighting what works and where initiatives can be scaled and further investments made. Moreover, it showcases how ICTs dramatically improve socio-political and economic outcomes, as well as gender equality for women and girls and how to advance their role as decision-makers and producers in the technology sector.
I am personally proud to be part of the Geneva Gender Champions initiative and to be known as a Geneva Gender Champion. As the Secretary General of ITU I will continue to push for change and to work towards greater gender equality in the ICT sector worldwide.