The CEO and Co-Founder of Logiciel, Farida Nana Efua Bedwei, has urged young girls and women to see setbacks as opportunities for personal growth and development to be able to compete in whichever field they find themselves.
In her address as keynote speaker at an event organised by the Design & Technology Institute (DTI) to mark this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD), she advised students that fear is an inevitable variable in every society – but the ability to manoeuvre it is the key to greatness and success.
The event was under the theme ‘DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for gender equality’, and aimed to raise awareness and sensitise learners on the role of innovative technology in promoting gender equality and meeting the health and developmental needs of women and girls in Ghana and Africa as a whole.
“My mother instilled in me the belief that there is always a way to accomplish something if I only set my mind to it. She taught me to focus on what I could do rather than on what was impossible. All my life, I have been told to remove the words ‘I can’t’ from my vocabulary and replace them with ‘I will try’,” she stated.
She commended women who in the face of their difficulties and fear are able to fend for their families. She also congratulated DTI for its vision and efforts to transform young lives, especially women with employable skills to prepare them for the future of work.
The panel of experts and well-accomplished women in the tech space encouraged the learners to be conscious of technology’s benefits in achieving gender equality.
Counsellor at DTI Louisa Oppong Afriyie noted that the event is a significant step in ensuring the institute develops learners who are gender-sensitive and can break down discriminatory attitudes. This will ensure equity and equality that benefits both genders for sustainable development.
“The fact that women and men experience the world differently means they must be treated equally if sustainable development is to be achieved,” she added.
She concluded that gender-sensitivity is integral to holistic human development, and must begin from early childhood for both males and females to develop a healthy self-concept.
The event is part of DTI’s partnership with the Mastercard Foundation under the ‘Young Africa Works’ programme, which aims to empower young girls by admitting 30 percent through the gender parity admission policy per cohort.
The institute currently has a total learner population of 219, with 62 of them being female.
