​Women's Technology Empowerment Centre

Lagos, Nigeria, 2014, April 24​​​​​

Women's Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC) celebrated Girls in ICT Day on the 24th of April, 2014 with young girls who are ICT- inclined. It was a chance to raise awareness about the opportunities of the ICT sector and empower girls with the knowledge that careers in ICT can be for them.

A 1-day Hackathon was organized where alumni from previous W.TEC camps and girls in secondary schools came together to compete in four knowledge areas in ICT:

• Blogging
• Mobile Application Development (AppInventor2)
• Digital Video Production
• Scratch Programming

The event took off with 15 girls who were ready to use their ICT  skills to explore within the short period they were given. Four teams were formed while three other girls worked as individuals on their respective projects.

The uniqueness of the hackathon was the fact that young girls were able to develop from start to finish projects that could have taken days or even weeks to achieve.

Examples of what were developed include a mobile application that gives information to women on home-keeping issues, an interactive story told using Scratch Programming, a blog that educates people on various women who have been icons to reckon within the ICT industry. These among others were developed by the girls during the Hackathon.

It was an educative and refreshing session for the girls as they had the opportunity to improve their skills on the knowledge they had acquired before.

At the end of the day, every girl had a gift to go home with as every one of them showed a sign of commitment  and had a full grasp of  benefits that await them as they explore ICT.