Huawei Technologies Ghana has trained over 40,000 young women in STEM this year, through its maiden digital technologies training programme ‘Seeds for the Future-Women in Tech’ – aimed at equipping and empowering more women with the skills needed to take up roles in the tech ecosystem.
The training started in September 2021, and has benefitted Junior High and Senior High School girls in the Ashanti, Central, Eastern, Western, Greater Accra and Northern Regions of Ghana.
Through the Huawei Seeds for the Future-Women in Tech programme, students were exposed to digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence, basic ICT skills training, coding programmes and languages like Scratch, HTML and C++, while some students were taken through the guidelines needed to enable them stay safe in cyberspace.
Although the majority of beneficiaries were Senior High School students, some Junior High School students who took part in the basic ICT skills and coding training shared experiences on how the training has given them opportunity to create games, create stories and operate laptops on their own with little assistance.
Traders at the Northern, Eastern, Western and the Greater Accra Regions were also taken through a workshop on Financial Technology (FinTech) by industry experts from the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence (AITI-KACE) to boost their businesses, economically empower and enable them to take advantage of digital technologies to improve their livelihoods.
In ensuring that the maiden edition of the Seeds for the Future-Women in Tech programme debuts successfully, Huawei Ghana partnered with the Rebecca Foundation, the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to hold the training in the various regions.
In partnership with the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation’s Girls in ICT programme, Huawei successfully trained over 40,000 Senior High School girls in Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security in the Ashanti, Central and Eastern Regions of Ghana. The Rebecca Foundation also partnered Huawei to train 600 Junior High School Girls in coding and 150+ women (traders) in Financial Technology. In collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Huawei engaged the Confucius Institute at the University of Ghana to offer a Chinese Cultural experience workshop for about 150 women in the Ga Central Municipality, and trained 1,000 Junior and Senior High School girls in coding and basic ICT skills respectively.
As part of the Global Leading ICT Company’s commitment in promoting gender equality, Huawei believes that more opportunities and support must be given women to ensure they have access to both education and training in order to compete in the digital economy.
Aside from Ghana, Huawei has already rolled out dedicated digital skills training programmes for women in multiple countries – including Ireland, Argentina, Bangladesh, Kenya and South Africa.
