Africa-Press – Botswana. Culture is a driver and enabler of socio-economic development. And so are Information Communication Technologies (ICT).
Girls and women therefore must ensure to keep both so as to benefit from boundless opportunities that they present if applied together. Balete Kgosikgolo Mosadi Seboko said at the Girls in ICT Day in Ramotswa Friday.
While lauding efforts towards empowering women and girls, Kgosi Mosadi said any such efforts made to equip them with digital literacy would create unprecedented opportunities and change their lives for the better.
She regretted that women and girls still lagged behind in digital access and urged all stakeholders to provide more programmes aimed at uplifting them, so they could be effective in today’s digital world. Kgosi Mosadi also urged Batswana to embrace digitalisation.
For her part Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) Datacom engineer, Ms Maatla Pilane said upon completion of her IGCSE was brave enough to take engineering, which was a career deemed challenging and uncommon for women.
“I saw that as an opportunity for me.
I must admit it is not an easy task attaining an engineering degree; As an introvert I had to learn to work in a group, ask for assistance, research and learn presentation skills. Breaking out of my shell got me to where I am,” she said.
She said over the years she was impressed to see more women engineers as more companies began to introduce positions and encouraged women with ICT qualifications to apply.
“I then decided to focus more on the network security field as a I realised that less to no women were participating in the field.
From being a graduate trainee, assistant engineer to now a fully-fledged engineer my job is more focused on network security,” she said.
It was in the course of her work that she got qualifications such as Cisco CCNA, Fortinet NSE4, 5 and 7 all obtained by assistance of her employer.
“[Now] I am able to do my job successfully and contribute towards the growth of BTC,” she added. Ms Pilane appealed to girls to identify and learn digital skills under the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field.
That, they could do by finding a mentor who had already broken barriers and become an unstoppable force in the digital space, she said.
Moeding College Student Representative Council President, Ms Lesang Gabohitlhelwesaid it was heart-warming to see more girls showing passion for and commitment to learn about technology and related fields.
She promised to work hard in school to make good grades in STEM related qualification.
The ICT Day was celebrated under the theme “Digital skills for life,” and was intended to inspire girls to pursue a future in ICTs, and advocated impartation of necessary skills to girls.
The event also served as a prelude to the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD) set to be commemorated in Ramotswa on Wednesday 17, 2023.
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