GEM-TECH Awards 2014 Winners Video

CATEGORY 1: ICT Applications, Content, Production Capacities and Skills for Women's Social, Political Empowerment and Women's Empowerment Linkages with Sustainable Development. 

UNESCO – Women in African History: An E-Learning Tool (Africa)
Women in African History: An E-Learning Tool is a platform that consists of multimedia educational resources including comic strips, audio modules, and quizzes which highlight the role of women in African history.  Ensuring meaningful engagement of young girls with ICTs through the production of relevant local content, the e-learning tool ensures capacity-building of young girls as both decision-makers and producers in the ICT Sector.  The platform is currently available English and French, with several African languages to be rolled out by 2015 to further promote multilingualism in cyberspace and encourage access of rural populations. 

CATEGORY 2: ICT Applications, Content, Production Capacities and Skills for Women's Economic Empowerment and Poverty Reduction

iMerit Technology Services (India)
iMerit provides scalable, web-based solutions to global clients that help transform their businesses.  iMerit empowers 500 young employees, 70% of whom are women, from minority and socio-economically marginalized communities in rural areas of India by providing a motivating digital work environment and training them to deliver high quality, agile services for iMerit's international client base.

iMerit's 'human capital model' is a 3-step process which empowers its 500 young employees: rural women are mobilized for an intensive 12-week market-aligned course, preparing them for employment in IT-service; students with strong IT skills are recruited to work in iMerit teams that deliver projects to clients; finally, employees are up-skilled and encouraged to enter leadership positions so that they can increase their incomes and prepare to build powerful careers. 

CATEGORY 3:  Promoting Women in ICT Sector - initiatives aimed at attracting, retaining and promoting women within the ICT sector and into decision-making positions (private and public sector)

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (UK)
BCSWomen, part of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is a countrywide networking group encompassing 1500 IT professionals. The team leading BCSWomen works to encourage more women to join the IT profession and support those who are part of it, including its members. BCSWomen runs face-to-face activities for its membership, conferences to encourage IT graduates and post-graduates to join the industry, mentoring and career support schemes for women in technology, and virtual activities using social media and discussion groups. The group also works to inform the UK Government and other Professional Bodies of the issues regarding the lack of diversity in IT. 

CATEGORY 4:  Enabling Girls to Become ICT Creators - initiatives aimed towards providing girls with an opportunity to become not just active users but also creators of ICTs and content

Research Center for Feminist Action (CIPAF) (Dominican Republic)
E-Chicas and Supermáticas STEM clubs for girls and young women ensure that they are not excluded from areas of knowledge because of their sex, while helping fill the gap in professionals in studying math, science, engineering and technology, which affects the Dominican Republic's competitiveness in the world economy. 

The clubs are committed to improving the quality of life of girls by building their self-esteem, teaching them about collaborative work, leadership, and promoting gender awareness. The girls receive special training including an introduction to robotics, electronics, coding, and tutoring support in math and science.

The STEM clubs also aim to address girls' retention in school and the problems of early pregnancy by teaching them about their sexual and reproductive rights, thus strengthening their self-awareness.  

Category 5: Closing the ICT Gender Gap - Ensuring ICT accessibility for women, such as digital literacy training and ensuring affordable and meaningful access to ICTs by women. Initiatives aimed at measuring the ICT gender gap including research and data on women's engagement with ICTs and their impact

Telecentre.org Foundation – Telecentre Women (Philippines)
Telecentre Women (TCW) is a global, multi-stakeholder initiative of Telecentre.org Foundation (TCF) geared towards bridging the gender gap in ICT by empowering women and girls with ICT training, knowledge, entrepreneurship and skills that expand their opportunities for better lives. The initiative started out as a Digital Literacy Campaign in 2011, and has since transformed into a major TCF programme that seeks to make an even greater impact on the lives of millions of women and girls worldwide, building on the digital skills already gained and empowering them further by equipping them with entrepreneurial skills and mentors as well as through advanced online training.

Category 6: Efforts to Reduce Threats Online and Building Women's Confidence and Security in the Use of ICTs

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) – Take Back the Tech! (South Africa)
Since 2005, APC Women's Rights Programme has looked at the connection between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and violence against women (VAW), and found this to be a critical issue that compelled deeper engagement. The Take Back the Tech! (TBTT) campaign was initiated in 2006 as one of the ways of achieving this goal. TBTT is a collaborative campaign that accompanies the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (25 November-10 December) to harness ICTs to end violence against women. The campaign calls on all ICT users – especially women and girls – to take control of technology and strategically use any ICT platform at hand (mobile phones, instant messengers, blogs, websites, digital cameras, email, podcasts and more) as part of their activism against gender-based violence. 

Category 7: ICT and Broadband strategies policies, framework that promote women's digital empowerment

Federal Ministry of Communication Technology (Nigeria)
The social and economic transformation of Nigeria requires that the economically active population be empowered and productive. Women, a significant part of this population, traditionally tend to be marginalized, but ICTs provide a useful avenue for the inclusion and active participation of women in development. The Nigerian government recognizes ICTs as tools for empowering women and girls and has put in place policy frameworks to ensure that gender issues move from the sidelines of policy and decision making and become one of the key priorities. These include the National ICT Policy and the National Broadband Plan which calls for a conscious effort to target women "who would not normally see the need for the use of ICT". Implementation of the policies is exemplified by the gender-oriented projects of the government aimed at increasing the interest and capacities of girls in ICT-related subjects, increasing the employability of young women in ICT fields and expanding the knowledge and connectedness of Nigerian women through mobile phone technology.

Find the Winners Brochure here