LAVENDER CHANDISAREVA
Students from various institutions which include University of Zimbabwe and others applaud the women in ICT conference, which was held at Cresta Lodge in Harare meant to provide them insights in the ICT industry as they are many strides being made by the government to empower women in ICT.
The conference was running under the theme “inspiring inclusion”, which was also the international women’s day theme. Speaking at the conference The President of Computer Society of Zimbabwe, Joice Benza mentioned the strides being made to encourage women in ICT through mentorship, branding and some of the purposes of the reemphasizing workshop.
“The purpose of the conference was to bring women together that are members of the computer science in Zimbabwe where women in ICT in Zimbabwe falls under and also some new members to talk about women issues”
“We were also focusing on accelerating empowerment, we want to be able to see the girl child and women in ICT elevated to the similar jobs with men to start,” she said.
Mrs Benza expressed how women should get educated to acquire high job positions.
“Women needs to be empowered because right now in most organisations from the statistics, less than 30% of women are actually empowered enough and in most cases, they are actually holding junior jobs”
“So, there is a lot to be gained and we are not only looking at the engineers from the universities but we are also there are also other grades that some can join for digital skills and they can be at another grade,” she said.
Mrs Benza said they were focusing on recapping the objectives set last year on 24 March 2023 when women in ICT conference was launched, while looking for other ways to empower women and engage them since women empowerment is a powerful tool for them to get to the top.
“We have already started mentorship and career guidance on these programs,” she said.
In an interview with the other two students from University of Zimbabwe, Sharleen Penny and Melissa Maveza expressed their gratitude and testimonies of them being in ICT and strides they have made so far as they are promising to open an innovative application soon that will help the University development.
Miss Penny explained how the conference has changed her way of thinking.
“Women in Tech conference 2024 has boosted my motivation, l got inspiration on how to embrace challenges in the Tech field as we know that being in a field that is male dominated mostly it’s so difficult and very challenging but l have learnt today that l have to embrace my skills and be able to face any challenge that l face,” she said.
She also shared her testimony on how they are planning to empower themselves.
“At school we have managed to collaborate with my other colleagues and we are three in the team ,two girls and 1 boy ,we managed to come up with an application it’s a versatile application called UZ connect, it’s an application where we are trying to identify problems at the University of Zimbabwe that were affecting us and as well how can the University use it to generate income.”
The other student, Miss Melissa Maveza, also shared her motive in terms of building a capacitated environment for other people with disability and also expressed her gratitude to the conference.
” The women in ICT conference of Zimbabwe really added a lot of value to me because l was a bit conflicted on the part way to choose after l graduate and l feel like they have opened my mind on what path can l take and what route can l take and options l do have so that l don’t have to really follow and do masters .l was really motivated by the women who spoke to us they really added a lot to me and it will help my personal growth ,so l am truly grateful for the opportunity to be here,” she said.
Miss Maveza explained how they are empowering people living with disabilities in the ICT industry.
“I am also part of the team UZ connect which is a branch of UZ mind that include people with disabilities.
“They also explore on how the app can help people with disabilities, so there is still a lot of fixtures that we can add to use to navigate the University map and that’s how we gonna use the technology to transform the life of UZ Students….”she said.
