Page 20 - FerMUN 2020 - Futurecasters Global Young Visionaries Summit, 8th-10th January 2020

New technologies
Ms Ruth Mulu, student from Ethiopia

I am Ruth Mulu, AGCCI ambassador. I am from Ethiopia and a first year university student.
Life can give you a bunch of opportunities in life to change yourself one of the best

opportunities I got for my life was participating in girls in ICT and AGCCI. These scenarios really
created the best out of me and the other girls with me. The world is now in digital revolution.
We Africans are not active in the changes taking place and especially when it comes to

technology. As we know most programmers, IT technicians are men. Africans and especially
African women are systematically excluded from decision-making roles in the digitalisation
process, but they have huge potential; they could benefit greatly from these technologies,

and make important contributions. The gender digital divide is being significant. Especially in
Africa, most girls are totally new to the whole situation. The level of awareness in Africa about
these fields is small. This due to the limited resource with the massive population.

In order to overcome this gap, many organizations, like ITU, are working on closure of the
gap. I was part of this program. AGCCI - African girls can code initiative and girls in ICT are

part of the programs, which aimed to minimize the digital gap. Briefly, AGCCI is a platform,
which gives girls from the age of 14-20 to know about programming and engage in it. It was
first held in Ethiopia. Me and other 84 girls from 35 countries of Africa participated in it. It was

a two-week program aimed to give a simple information about ICT, programming and STEM
fields. Soft skills were also given correspondingly. Technically, we learned a programming
language called scratch. We were also classified to 5 classes: gaming, animation, robotics
and IOT, turtle stich and fashion and art. We created more than a hundred project aiming of

the problems we have in Africa and creating solutions with it. The interesting part was that we
had to go to our home with a brand new laptop to each of us. The girls in ICT day was
celebrated in Ethiopia in which we girls from AGCCI had a chance to describe how our

experience was to lots of girls.
These opportunities are ever flowing. Because of AGCCI I met the United nations secretariat
general Antonio Gutters and presented our project. I trained other girls. Finally yet importantly
I participated in the second Paris peace forum held this November and now I am speaking in
front of you.

The changes we need in the world are significant. In order to make these big changes, we
need to start from little things. Teaching ourselves, sharing what we know, helping each other
out are the key. The youth these days all around the world is trying to achieve something better

through digitalization. The icon of the world are now the young peoples. These incredible
young peoples will serve as a role model for the upcoming youth and give a lot of enthusiasm
for the others. With all the energy, we have and as enthusiastic as we are to change, I hope
we will change for the better and make the world peaceful and ever glowing.

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