Women and Information Society NGO
Yerevan, Armenia, 2014, April 25
International Girls in ICT Day was celebrated for the third time in Armenia on April 25, 2014. A forum, entitled "Expand Horizons, Change Attitudes," took place at the American University of Armenia (AUA). Artak Hambaryan, Associate Director of AUA delivered an opening speech at the forum. Narine Abazian, the president of the "Women and Information Society" NGO read the message of Dr. Hamadoun Touré, the ITU Secretary-General. The speech was prepared specially for Girls in ICT Day.
Successful female leaders from UNDP, TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, Armenian Virtual College, Gyumri Information Technologies Center, Idram LLC, Cisco Networking Academy, Regional Mobile Application Laboratory, American University of Armenia, Physmath School, Armenian-Indian Center for Excellence in ICT and other institutions shared their knowledge and experience, as well their ideas for success in ICT.
This year the forum was available via livestreaming for school-aged girls, students and teachers across Armenia for the second time with the support of Cisco -WebEx, the worldwide leader in networking. One of the important outcomes of this forum was the online participation of schoolgirls, students and teachers from regions and rural areas in Armenia, which increased the number of the participants. If in 2012, 200 high-school girls and students participated in the Girls in ICT celebrations only from Yerevan, then in 2014 totally 47 secondary schools, colleges and ICT institutions joined the Forum: 19 from Yerevan and 7 from near regions and 21 from nine remote marzes, plus Gyumri Information Technology Centre.
Awards in various categories were granted to young girls from Yerevan and regions based on the competition results. 44 school-aged girls and students from different regions of Armenia prepared video materials on the topics of E-learning, E-business, E-government. The top winner, Tamara Hovhannisyan from Armavir region was invited as a keynote speaker for the next year "Girls in ICT" celebrations. This year, Arpine Baroyan, was the forum speaker with an interesting presentation "Motivation in my life". She is a school-girl from Yerevan Physmath School and the winner of "Girls in ICT" competition, 2013.
The event was livestreamed for Yerevan, Armenian regions, Cisco Academy in London and in Minsk. A special video message to Armenian school-girls was sent by Kimberly A. Scott from Arizona State University. Professor Scott is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University, founder and Executive Director of CompuGirls, and an awardee of STEM Access Champion of Change at the White House in 2014.
The forum was organized by the 'Women and Information Society' NGO with the support of Ministry of Economy, Cisco, Enterprise Incubator Foundation, Arm-Indian Center for Excellence, Regional Mobile Application Laboratory for ECA, Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, American University of Armenia, Idram Internet Payment System Operator and National Center of Educational Technologies.
"Women and Information Society" NGO was established in September 2011 with the mission to contribute to the integration of women and girls in the information society of Armenia. The organization is based on the partnership of many stakeholders, including the private sector, the government, the academia and the non-profit sector, with the goal to leverage resources and research, build awareness, and promote programmes, which will remove the barriers that restrict girls and women to use information and communication technologies (ICT). Hence NGO activities are aimed at increasing the participation of women in education, entrepreneurship, and leadership in ICT and related sectors.
