On 28 April 2017 the event devoted to the International Girls in ICT Day was held. It should be reminded that this day was established by the Resolution of the International Telecommunications Union ( ITU), the lead UN agency for information and communication technologies. International Girls in ICT Day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in April every year as a women’s day working or studying in ICT. This year the Femmes Digitales Women’s Club of Azerbaijan conducted a series of events to demonstrate the perspectives of professional growth in ICT to schoolgirls and students. The partners of the events within the celebration in Azerbaijan were International Telecommunications Union and STEP IT Computer Academy.
In addition to the ceremony arranged on April 28 in the conference hall of the STEP IT Computer Academy, which gathered about 200 people, representatives of Femmes Digitales, a series of meetings in Baku schools and universities was held, covering a total of more than 1,000 girls who were told how to expand their knowledge, test their practical skills and get a new opportunity to change their life by getting acquainted with the ICT area. Teachers showed special interest in such meetings. In addition, for the girls visited the offices of Azerbaijani companies R.I.S.K. and Ultra Technologies, having the leading positions in the IT market of the country.
The practical seminars on web-programming, Scratch language, LEGO robotics, IT and Adobe Photoshop awareness were held in the classrooms of STEP IT Computer Academy on April 29. Also the representatives of MONT Azerbaijan informed the girls about the opportunities of the new Microsoft Office 365. The video conference with ITU representatives and counterparts from other countris was arranged, the coorinator of the ITU CIS Branch Office Farid Hakhli highly appreciated the efforts made by the Femmes Digitales in this direction and offered to escalate the initiative to the international level. A honorary guest of the event was a adviser to the Governor to the Ulyanovsk region, the Russian Federation, Ms. Svetlana Openisheva, who visited Azerbaijan to get acquainted with the operations principles of ASAN services .
Celebrating the International Girls in ICT Day and the ICT activity of the Women’s Club of Azerbaijan Femmes Digitales allowed the participants including those girls and women who had their first experience in this initiative, to take a fresh look at the career opportunities opening in this interesting and dynamically developing area, ask the representatives for the large local IT companies about their work experience, informally communicate to the Club’s founders — the women who have buit their successful career in IТ.
This year the sponsors and the partners of the event were STEP IT Computer Academy, Microsoft Azerbaijan, Huawei, MONT Azerbaijan software distributor, Cybernet, Azercell and B.EST Solutions. Organizational issues were supported by the Public association «ASAN Könüllüləri» («ASAN Volunteers»). In the conclusion of the event all the participants of the International Girls in ICT Day were given souvenir gifts.
It should be mentioned that according to the ITU data to date, over 240,000 girls and young women have taken part in more than 7,200 celebrations of International Girls in ICT Day in 160 countries worldwide.
