Tech Buffet for Women

Globally women are poorly represented in the technology industry and Ghana is not an exception. To add to this,he recent public health challenge from ConVid 19 pandemic has forced the world to stay at home and cannot physically go to work.  Households have been affected by the closure of companies and the loss of jobs. This has put a strain on the income of families and especially women with children are the most affected. Some students have also been forced to either do online learning or lag behind their colleagues. In Ghana, over 9 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030, translating to about 20 million training opportunities. 

This project seeks to build, develop and empower women and girls to acquire digital literacy, personal development and leadership skills to ensure their continued access to lifelong income opportunities  and future jobs during and after COVID19.

Technology has leveled the playing fields and has the power to economically help women and girls to eradicate poverty for future generation. Because with the right technological Skills,one can work remotely anywhere. 

Ghana has about 2,752,601 women between the ages of 15-24 years, a youth dependency ratio of 62.2 and female unemployment rate of 8.7%.The global economy is changing fast due to the advent of technology. According to Internet World Statistics, “over fifty percent of the global population will have access to technology in 2019 as compared to 30 percent in 2010”. Nearly 65 percent will have access to mobile phones.This access to technology has necessitated a shift in the skills needed for future jobs, access to markets and the ownership of businesses. 

These transformations,if managed wisely, could lead to a new age of good work, good jobs and improved quality of life for all especially women, but if managed poorly, may pose the risk of widening skills gap, greater inequality and broader polarization.The importance of Digital Skills cannot be overemphasized.Culturally,girls are socialized to pursue non-STEM courses. Recent training we conducted among 300 girls indicated that about 230 of them have low self esteem and confidence.

The solution we offer is a capacity building project that will equip,build and empower 5000 young girls between the ages of 15 - 25 years to acquire some basic to intermediate technology skills,personal development and leadership skills. The project offers three months intensive and mentorship opportunity for all.

This will be a five weeks of intensive capacity building program. The first module is a set of basic digital skills for women.This skills include email management,web search,and digital transactions. 

 The second module of skills include mapping skills such as remote mapping, and introduction to GIS.Tools such as OpenStreetMap, QGIS,and iD editor will be used.This module is to empower women with mapping skills to map and project issues related to women and girls such as gender based violence, hospitals for women,market places,rescue centers etc in Ghana. 

The third module is intermediate skills include social media management, data analysis and visualization using simple tools like excel, Tableau, Canva and PowerPoint,and using Content Management System to design websites and solutions.This module will equip women with intermediate digital skills to build robust websites, data analysis & visualizations,and social media solutions for themselves or organisations to make a living or get a job with these skills.

The project will be targeted at the following:

1. Women and girls between the ages of 15 - 25 who have dropped out of school or finished second or tertiary institutions without employment. 

2. Women and girls between the ages of 15 -25 years of age with a passion to pursue technology careers and develop their personal and leadership skills and get ready for the digital job market.

3. Young Women Entrepreneurs within the age bracket listed above who want to grow their business by applying these digital skills in their business.

Mobile Web Ghana has built the capacity of more than 700 women and girls between the ages of 15-25 years in the past two years in the area gender base violence,mapping,data analysis and visualization,mentorship and  personal development.Based on the feedback we received, women  and girls are passionate to use technology to project and solve issues related to women, about 80% of them have low self esteem and confidence and are worried about fitting into future jobs. 

This project seeks to meet the need of these target participants by offering five weeks of capacity building in basic and intermediate digital skills, personal development,leadership skills and three months of internship and mentorship opportunity.

According to a survey conducted across all markets—including Sub-Saharan Africa— basic digital skills, such as email communication, web research, and online transactions, are essential to the future workforce. In Sub-Saharan Africa, over 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030, resulting in almost 650 million training opportunities. The project seeks to holistically empower girls and women with technology skills, leadership and personal development skills for them to fit into future job and also currently survival during and after COVID 19. The project is therefore enhancing and improving digital and empowerment learning opportunities for women and girls in Ghana.

There are some organizations in the country that have already attempted doing something similar to what we intend to do. Find some of them below:

1. Developers In Vogue (DIV): They organize different training events for the women in the community on different fields in technology. DIV also arranges for some internship opportunities for community members. Some of their training programs are on website development, data science etc.
2. Unlocking Women and Technology: This offers women free training - to innovate through technology in HTML,CSS,Content Management System, Business Model and Customer Service Development etc. 
3. Soronko Solutions :- This is focused on teaching girls coding These are just about 3 of the projects that are being run in Ghana that are similar to our project. 

What makes ours unique are the following points:

• We are not just giving these women and girls digital skills, we are empowering and developing them with personal development skills such as building good self esteem and confidence, leadership skills and 21st century skills to fit into the job market.
• Integrating basic geo-spatial course such as mapping is an essential skill to map,project and help solve issues related to women and girls.
• Internship Opportunities:  Mobile Web Ghana has a wide network of tech companies and start ups. We will partner with these start ups and companies to offer internship opportunities for the participants of the project.
• Mentorship: The ladies will be mentored by some of the successful female tech-entrepreneurs in Ghana.

Our solution is a capacity building project which seeks to train girls to take up careers in technology. Hence, the ladies will be introduced to a number technology tools however, we will be employing some software tools to reach them and to facilitate activities of the project. These software are:

1. Zoom: Zoom will be used to host online meetings and meet ups with the mentors of the participants.
2. Slack: An online community will be created on slack to give the participants the opportunity to interact with each other, share ideas and even interact with their facilitators.
3. Excel - For data collection, analysis and visualization
4. Canva - A powerful online graphic designing tool 
5. Tableau - "It is a powerful and fastest growing data visualization tool used in the Business Intelligence Industry. It helps in simplifying raw data into the very easily understandable format."
6. Mapping :- OpenStreetMap, QGIS,and iD editor
7. An Email Client:-  A computer program used to access and manage a user's email.

The technologies mentioned above are well known and widely used technologies worldwide. 

Excel :- It has been used as a simple data collection, cleaning, analysis and visualization tool by data scientist, organisations and financial analyst. It is one of the preinstalled application that most personal computers have and the most underutilized application by people who own software.

Canva:- Mobile Web Ghana has been using and teaching Canva. "Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content. It is available on web and mobile, and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations"

OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. 

Gmail Client:- We will use this platform to teach basic digital skills as email management.

Google Search :- This plaform will be used to teach basic web search skills.

The key elements of our theory of change are 

 1. There is low representation of women in Tech. CoVid 19 has also caused educational systems to shut down, majority of young girls have low self esteem and confidence and therefore cannot achieve their full potential. Also, women and girls have not contributed to projecting their issues on map for collective actions to be taken on it. Lastly future jobs will require basic to intermediate digital skills. 

2. With the right digital, and personal development women and girls will have the power to increase their employability, increase their economic power and reduce employment for girls across Ghana

3. The output will be increased knowledge in mapping, more facilities that benefit women mapped, increase in confidence level of girls and women, increased in aspiration to be leaders and to pursue career options in technology.

4. Increase in employability due to internship and mentorship 

4. Indicators are number of women and girls who completed the training program, number of women and girls placed in the internship companies, # of women and girls

Ghana has 16 regions in total. Currently the solution has served more than 700 women and girls in the Greater Accra Region. We will like to scale it to other regions in Ghana.

In one year we want to directly impact 500 women and girls in one region. 

And we will like to serve 5,0000 women and girls in 10 different regions in Ghana within the next five years. 

We are connected to a network of African leaders across the continent and will like to scale our solution to other countries in the fourth year of the project.

Our impact goal is to directly empower , develop and equip 5,000 women and girls within the ages 15 to 25 years of age with basic to intermediate digital and personal development skills.

We will achieve this through two main things:-

Partnerships: - Mobile Web Ghana has a network of partners across the country and will leverage on this nationwide partnership to create the change we want to see through this program. 

Train the trainer model: - Some of the best girls will be given special training to help in the scaling of the project to other regions. Some of them will also be given the opportunity to volunteer on the project. 

The technology tool that will be used will be very simple. The method of capacity building that will be used is participatory and practical based approach. We therefore envisage less barriers to re-skilling these women and girls in this project.

1. One of the barriers is punctuality and regularity:- This problem is usually encountered during training programs that lasts for more than a week or few days. 

2. Commitment to the program:- Most participants who join various training programs are committed only for a while.

3. The project will be funded by a combination of grant, nominal fees from participants, and support from corporate bodies. The target audience for these project are not actively in the working class. Most of them are barely struggling to make ends meet but are very enthusiastic to learn and apply new skills that will increase their economic power. We will work hard to ensure that funds and support are secured to make the project work seamlessly.

We will put in the following measures below to overcome the barriers listed above:  

1. Regularity and punctuality:- This barrier will be solved by signing an MoU with all participants during the first season. This will ensure that participants adhere to the terms of the MoU. We will also create rules of engagement together. This will ensure that they are regular and punctual.

2. Commitment:- All participants will be made to pay an enrollment fee to ensure that at least they have done some form of investment toward the training program.

3. Strong Outreach to Partners: - Mobile Web Ghana has a wide network of corporate bodies and partners. The project team will reach to these network early to seek their support for these project.

Mobile Web Ghana is a technology & entrepreneurship hub that empowers the youth and organisations to leverage on technological solutions to solve community problems.Our vision is to create a critical mass of change agents in various communities and organisations that use the power of technology to improve lives and work. Since we began operating in Ghana,we have reached more than over 5,00 youths,2,000 women and girls,1000 government officials with our tailored technology training programs.We are made up of a lean team of 6 core dedicated members, about 20 part-time trainers. We also have volunteer networks we tap into for projects.

Mobile Web Ghana is best suited to undertake this project mainly because we have 9 years track record in the area of ICT for development capacity,and entrepreneurship.We have a strong network of partners in Ghana and other parts of Africa.Mobile Web Ghana has conducted a number of training programs for young ladies and we got feedback from the participants to scale these training to other regions so that other women and girls can benefit from the training.Some of the ladies we trained have gone on to become established in I.T companies in Ghana.These programs are:

1. Females in Mobile Entrepreneurship (FiME):Females in Mobile Entrepreneurship (FiME) is an initiative of Mobile Web Ghana to increase female participation in Science,Technology,Engineering Mathematics (STEM).This programme sought to foster entrepreneurship and empower females through mobile technology training and events.The project reached more than 300 girls with tips about mobile entrepreneurship.
2. Unlocking Women and Technology Project:The Unlocking Women And Technology project is a project that seeks to empower women-by offering them free training - to innovate through technology. This project was implemented in 2016 and 2017 in collaboration with iSpace and the ladies who participated in it were put into various classes. 
3. Technology outreach for girls:-Mobile Web Ghana has reached more than 2,000 girls through outreach programs to teach school girls coding, encourage them to pursue technological careers.
4. Visuals for Genders :-Visuals for Gender is an initiative that seeks to equip citizens,policymakers and Civil Society Organisations to understand gender-based issues using both dynamic and static data visualizations. 

Mobile Web Ghana has partnered and still is in partnership with some local and international organizations on a number of projects. Find the list of organizations we partner with below:

1. The World Bank, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team,USA, OpenStreetMap Ghana: We  worked on the Open Cities Accra (OCA) project which was funded by the bank. The project sought to collect and curate up-to-date and accurate geospatial data in the following areas of interest in Accra: Akweteyman, Alajo, Alogboshie and Nima. 
2. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) : In 2019, we partnered with GIZ, a German development organization, to train 600+ journalists and staff of government institutions and Civil Society Organizations. The theme for the training program was ‘Data reporting for the SDGS’. Participants were taught how to report on the progress Ghana is making on the 17 SDGs using data analysis and visualization. Our team of facilitators took the participants through some simple data analysis and visualization tools such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Canva.
3. US Embassy, Ghana: Visuals for Gender is an initiative that seeks to equip citizens, policymakers and Civil Society Organisations to understand gender-based issues using both dynamic and static data visualizations. The goal is to highlight the critical gender-related issues in our society, share them with citizens, policymakers and journalists to take actions on them. The data sets we use are on the following cases, FGM, child marriages, defilement, rape etc.
4. Ghana Code Club :-It is an after-school program in Ghana, Africa, that teaches children computer programming skills.

This capacity building activities will be delivered physically and also remotely when the need arises. Women and girls between the ages of 15 to 25 years of age are ready to learn skills to get them ready for the job market. The pandemic has necessitated the need for women and girls in school to learn digital skills to be able to cope with economic situations like COVID-19. The methodology that will be used will be participatory, practical and project based learning approach. This will ensure that women and girls master the skills taught them at the end of a giving session. 

The main business model for this project is in four parts:

1. Grants:- 90% of the training will be offered for free to enable more women and girls to benefit from this project. This will also ensure that all women and girls are given equal opportunity to participant in the project. The project will actively seek for support in the form of grants to be able to deliver this program effectively and efficiently to women and girls.

2. Nominal fees :- Participants will be required to pay 10% of the training fees as a form of commitment fee to sure that they are ready to invested into the training.

3. Corporate sponsorship:- The project team will reach out to corporate bodies to support different parts of the projects. eg. competition for the girls, internet for training etc

4. Internship package:- Companies will be required to pay a fee to get an intern to work with.

Solve has a powerful network of expertise and partners who are passionate about helping to use technology to solve problems. Solve can help us overcome the barrier of raising support and funds for this project. We are looking for financial support to be able to scale this solution to our target group of women and girls who cannot afford to pay to enroll in this program. 

Solve can also help us to project, market and expose our solution to the world for expert advice, and get volunteers on board. 

We are seeking partnership in the area of funding & revenue model,  marketing, media and exposure. The oxygen of every project is funds and the right marketing exposure to the right partners. Solve has extensive experience in their areas and we will be privileged to have the opportunity to work with Solve on our Tech Buffet for Women (TBW) project.

We are also very open to learning new methods and ways of conducting monitoring and evaluation of the project.

We will like to work with MIT faculty or initiatives focused on empowering and developing women and girls to reach their full potential through technology. This can include the pedagogy of teaching and learning, the adaptation of training materials and the delivery of the capacity building. We are open to learn more about initiatives like this that MIT has undertaken.

We will use this prize to fund the Tech Buffet for Women project in the Volta Region of Ghana where women and girls have less opportunities to learn about STEM and also build their personal lives to reach their full potential. Women and girls in this region are plague with teenage pregnancies and child trafficking. This prize will help us to scale our tailor made Tech Buffet for Women project to this region to empower them and connect them to internship and mentorship opportunities.

This funding will be used to key project activities, such as training, and logistics and after training support for these women and girls.

The Tech Buffet for Women is just not building the capacity of women and girls in STEM. We are putting in structures to ensure that these skills are put to good use to increase the economic opportunities of the women and girls who will participate in our project. Getting the skills is not enough, using the skills is the uttermost importance to the project. This will be do by mentorship, internship and  exposure to various tech careers that these women and girls can benefit from. 

This prize will help us to scale our tailor made Tech Buffet for Women project to this region to empower them and connect them to internship and mentorship opportunities.

This funding will be used to key project activities, such as training, and logistics and after training support for these women and girls.