Geneva Girls in ICT Day Celebrations, ITU HQ

4/26/2018

Europe, Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland

The Geneva Girls in ICT Day 2018  event took place on 26 April 2018 at ITU HQ in Geneva. The celebrations saw the participation of local schools and organizations for a half-day event aimed at encouraging girls and young women to consider studies and careers in the growing field of ICTs, while at the same time highlighting the importance of digital skills to pursue successful professional careers across sectors.

Participating schools included: International Schoolof Geneva- Nations Campus, International School of Geneva- La Grande BoissièreCampus, British School of Geneva, Collège de Sécheron, Collège Rousseau, Institut Florimont and Collège du Léman. 

The event included opening remarks, mentoring sessions and a Girls in ICT Fair.

The opening remarks were given by:

• Mr. Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary General 
• 
  H.E. Ms. Rosemary McCarney, Canadian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and Geneva Gender Champion  
• 
  
• Mr. Brahima Sanou, Director, ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau

During the mentoring session the girls had the opportunity to talk to successful female role models from the ICT sector, ask them questions on their experience and learn more about the opportunities different ICT related careers could offer them. The female role models have been selected from different fields, backgrounds and professional paths, in order to provide participating girls with the opportunity to explore a wide range of possible career opportunities and make them understand the variety of possible ICT related studies and careers. The full list of role models is available in the agenda below.

The second part of the event was the Girls in ICT Fair. For this purpose, an open exhibition was set up in the Montbrillant ground floor. Here, local organizations active in the ICT field had dedicated booths where they showcased their technologies and provided participating girls with the opportunity to personally try and learn how these were created and how they work. Participating girls were able to visit different booths explore and try different technologies, learn different skills, talk to people active in the ICT field and be inspired to consider this as a career option for their future in a fun and engaging setting. The activities proposed are listed below.

Workshop	Organized by
Robotics workshop	CERN
Virtual reality for humanitarian applications using geospatial data	UNITAR-UNOSAT
Programming a weather station with Arduino	Daniel Eichhorn (Netcetera and ThingPulse)
Interactive demonstration with Mbots	EPFL
Build and programme your robots	Markus Leutwyler
Virtual Reality and 3D printing	Ludeek
Build and programme your smart wristband	FabLab Onl'Fait
Create your first webpage with HTML	Liip
Interactive talk about digital advertising	Liip
Discover ITU through Lego Mindstorms	ITU-R
Videogame development	Empowerment Lab

The agenda of the event is available below.

More pictures available here