Group Trains 30 Girls On Digital Technologies

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Women Technology Empowerment Centre (WTEC), says it has trained 30 girls on digital circuit technologies, coding, and web design to bridge gender gap in the technology space.
The Programme Manager at WTEC, Maryam Abdulsalam, said this when she spoke with newsmen in Lagos, last weekend.
She said the girls were trained during the ‘She Creates’ camp organised for girls between ages 13 and 17, at Laureates College, Oshodi, Lagos.
According to her, the girls were trained on building electronic circuits using circuit boards, jumper wires, LED bulbs, plastics, iron, resistors and other cheap materials that they could get in their surroundings.
She noted that the girls were also taught tie and dye to explore some form of hand work and gain the ability to multi-task.
“With simple materials provided, the girls were able to build power banks, rechargeable lamps, keyboard light and LED bulbs, using plastic and cheap wires.
“The girls were asked to build these things to test their critical and problem-solving skills. Most of them were able to come up with different designs when they were told to apply their practical works to real life situations,” she said.
Abdulsalam, who noted that the engineering world thrives on constant reinvention and that women need to be a part of the driving force, explained that the only way to make women be part of that driving force was to start encouraging girls to pick interest in technology-related courses.
She stated that most of the girls at the camp were not science students, but that since the beginning of the training, a lot of them had picked interest.
According to her, apart from technology-related trainings, the NGO decided to add sex education in the two-week curriculum.
They also engaged the girls in self-defence classes to teach them how to defend themselves when involved in any sexual harassment incident.
Also speaking, a participant at the bootcamp, Blessing Collins, said since the beginning of the programme, she had learnt coding, digital circuit technologies and how to use User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design to build apps.
“UI refers to the screens, buttons, icons and other visual elements that you interact with when using a website or other electronic device, while UX refers to the entire interaction you have with a product, including how you feel about the interaction,” she said.
Collins said through her experience in the camp, she could now create a quizz app using the UI and UX designs.
Another participant, Joy Obi, said before she came for the bootcamp she could not operate the computer.
She said within a period of one week she had learnt how to create an app and also use the UI and UX designs perfectly.
“We also learnt how to make keyboard light using carton, wires and LED, I must say it has been fun participating in this bootcamp,” she said.