ITU, UN Women celebrate outstanding projects
and leaders using ICTs to transform women’s lives
Annual GEM-TECH Award winners highlight key role of technology
in advancing women’s empowerment, health & education
New York, 14 December, 2015 – Three
outstanding organizations and three distinguished individuals leading projects
and advocacy to boost gender equality and women’s empowerment using information
and communication technologies (ICTs) will be honoured at a ceremony in New York
today as recipients of the annual ITU/UN Women
GEM-TECH Awards.
Jointly organized by UN agencies ITU and UN Women, the
awards recognize the tremendous power of ICTs to transform women’s lives by
providing them with better access to education, information, support networks,
employment opportunities, avenues for political participation, and devices and
apps that can improve personal safety. The awards are celebrated this year as
part of the 20-year commemoration of the
Beijing Platform for
Action.
The three GEM-TECH winners and three Global Achievers will
receive their awards at a ceremony held this evening at Civic Hall in New York,
in partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Technology and
Innovation and generously sponsored by Mozilla, Microsoft, the Swiss Federal
Office of Communications, Verizon and Facebook. The awards will be presented by
ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Malcolm Johnson, and UN Women Deputy Executive
Director, Lakshmi Puri.
The 2015 GEM-TECH winners are:
Promoting women in the technology sector
Winner: Technovation Challenge, USA.
Applying technology for women’s empowerment
Winner: The Research Center of Communication and
Development Knowledge Management (CCDKM), Thailand.
Developing gender responsive ICT governance,
policy and access
Winner: The Ministry of Posts and
Telecommunications, Senegal.
The three GEM-TECH Global Achievers
recognized and honoured for their exceptional efforts to boost women’s
empowerment through ICTs are:
- Anusha Rehman
Khan, Minister of State for IT and
Telecommunications, Pakistan
- Pamela
Hamamoto, Ambassador, US Mission to
the United Nations, Geneva
- Nancy Hafkin,
Senior Associate, Women in Global
Science and Technology, USA.
Watch a video
profiling this year’s winners
here, and
read about their achievements
here.
The 2015 GEM-TECH awards
attracted nearly 150 nominations from government,
the private sector, academia and civil society from
55 countries. Online nominations were open from 28
May to 31 July, and attracted a wide range of
projects and advocacy work linked to harnessing ICTs
for women’s empowerment. A full list of finalists is
available
here, and a video profiling the
finalists can be viewed
here.
Ahead of tonight’s ceremony in
New York, ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao said:
“We know that ICTs can help redress many development
gaps, particularly in areas like access to education
and health care. This in turn impacts on women’s
opportunities and on key SDG indicators like
maternal and child health. ITU applauds these
outstanding organizations and individuals for their
commitment and success in ICT-based women’s
empowerment”.
Speaking about the awards, UN
Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
said: “The surge in the number of entrants for this
award is a positive indication of the increasing
profile of women in STEM. The new 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, to which all the countries
of the UN have signed up, explicitly targets
enhanced use of enabling technologies to promote
women’s empowerment. These awards underline just how
much talent there is ready to do just that,
showcasing some of the best practices which advance
women’s empowerment and digital inclusion.”
Chief Technology Officer for
the City of New York, Minerva Tantoco, said: “The
ICT industry can provide economic opportunity for
women not only to participate in but drive the
digital economy. We believe that technology can be a
force multiplier for social good, and these winners
are inspiring examples of using technology to
promote gender equality and empower women. The
Mayor’s Office of Technology & Innovation is proud
to partner with ITU and UN Women to celebrate these
projects.”
ITU has a long-standing
commitment to ‘gender and technology’ issues. Among
other activities, ITU’s Girls in ICT Day, which
takes place annually on the fourth Thursday in
April, encourages young women and girls to pursue a
career in ICT, and has to date reached over 177,000
girls through more than 5,300 events in over 150
countries. ITU’s Special Envoy on Women and Girls in
ICT is award winning actor and advocate, Geena
Davis.
UN Women’s efforts in
advancing women’s rights and gender equality through
ICTs include dozens of national level programmes
that advance girls and women’s digital literacy and
capacities, apply technology to support women’s
livelihoods, make quality education more accessible
to adolescent girls, prevent and respond to violence
against women, and promote social
mobilization and women’s political participation. UN
Women also advocates for gender and ICT linkages
within global frameworks and national ICT and gender
related strategies.
The
inaugural GEM-TECH Awards were presented at
ITU’s 2014 Plenipotentiary Conference held in Busan,
Republic of Korea. There, seven individuals and
organizations from around the world won awards for
promoting gender equality and mainstreaming through
ICTs.
Follow the GEM-TECH
news on Twitter #GEMtechAwards
Download GEM-TECH 2015
photos
here.
For more information,
visit the
awards website
or contact:
At ITU |
At UN Women |
Paul Conneally
Head, Corporate Communications
|
Sharon Grobeisen
Media & Communications Officer
|
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