The Department of Informatics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon (DI-FCUL) joined the commemorations of the “Girls in ICT Day”, for the first time in 2015, organizing and event directed to young women, their parents and teachers, with the aim of making them aware of the career opportunities and personal and professional fulfillment in the field of Information Technology and Communications (ICT), and to promote a reflection on the topic among educators and young women.

The event happened on the 23rd of April and brought together professional women in executive and managerial positions in Portuguese and international companies operating in Portugal, women in charge for recruiting human resources in ICT, university professors and researchers, secondary school teachers and former and current students of the DI-FCUL.

The Portuguese Secretary of State for Higher Education Prof. José Ferreira Gomes had an intervention where he highlighted the overwhelming need of ICT professionals highly qualified to fulfill the current 5000 vacancies of ICT jobs in Portugal. Besides presentations of faculties on the theme of the “ICT Girls Day” and “Myths about women in ICT”, the event included a panel titled “Women and ICT”. The topics discussed comprised: the increased mainstreaming of ICT in all areas of activity, in particular with the future globalization of the Internet of Things; the importance of women's participation in ICT industry, research and teaching, versus its current low representation in this area; how to motivate girls to study and embrace an ICT career; the lack of professionals in the ICT career, in Portugal an in all Europe; the universality of ICT as a career, where language and geographic barriers are minimized.

To promote the event and to give continuity to further activities related with this initiative, a website was build and made available at the URL: http://girlsinict.ciencias.ulisboa.pt/. Several testimonials, in the form of interviews, from former women students as well as current young women students at DI-FCUL, were published in this website. These interviews were also published in a Facebook page specially designed for the event and future related
activities: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Girls-in-ICTCiênciasULisboa/1717498155143921

The testimonials of former students that are already ICT professionals are an example of motivation for young women that may decide on pursuing an ICT career.
In addition, all the ICT professionals intervenient in the panel strongly pushed forward young women to follow ICT careers, by enthusiastically sharing their positive personnel and professional experiences, focusing on their job satisfaction, the benefits of some positions in ICT, where a women can work at home, allowing a personnel time management to accommodate, for instance, motherhood related activities. The event was attended by 80 participants, 40 of which were young women, including university and college students. Portuguese newspapers reported the event as well as some magazines published in digital media.

The DI-FCUL intends to continue to celebrate annually the International Girls in ICT Day promoted by the ITU and to work continuously to enlarge the global movement of encouragement of young women to take part of the future ICT world. The Department of Informatics at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon has a more than 25 years’ experience in the training of highly qualified professionals and scientific research in ICT, especially in Computer Science, Information Technology and several multidisciplinary courses, at the levels of bachelor, master and doctorate.