By Oreoluwa Lesi | Executive Director
Dear friends,
Is it too late to say happy new year to you all? Well, better late than never. We hope that your 2020 has started off very well and wish you a year filled with dreams come true.
For us at W.TEC, the last year and decade ended on a high and we look forward to what this new one brings with it.
Over the last quarter and by the end of last year, we experienced the following:
Won the 2019 EQUALS in Tech Award
Were featured in TIME Magazine’s January edition
Celebrated Safer Internet Day at the W.TEC Academy
Kicked off a new project “Digital Generation Youth” in South Africa
Were nominated for the 2020 WSIS Prizes (World Summit on the Information Society)
Participated in 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence
a.) W.TEC wins a 2019 EQUALS in Tech Award
The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre – W.TEC was among winners announced at the 2019 EQUALS in Tech Awards held on Wednesday November 27 at a gala awards ceremony at Berlin’s Estrel Conference Center in Germany.
The Skills prize went to the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), an NGO working to enable women and girls to become professionals and entrepreneurs in the tech sector.
The awards, is hosted by the EQUALS Global Partnership, to recognize innovative solutions aimed at closing the digital gender gap. Winning initiatives were chosen from a pool of 15 outstanding finalists from 12 countries. Over 200 organizations submitted entries for this year’s awards, which span five categories: Access, Skills, Tech Leadership, SME Leadership, and Research.
W.TEC is extremely proud to have won this highly competitive and prestigious award and look forward to leveraging on this accolade to do even more to enhance gender diversity in technology.
Read more: https://wtec.org.ng/w-tec-wins-2019-equals-in-tech-awards/
b.) W.TEC was featured in TIME Magazine
W.TEC was featured in the January issue of TIME Magazine. The publication invited Tim Berners-Lee, Madeleine Albright, Michelle Bachelet, and other prominent personalities to write to a young person or people of their own choosing.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and co-founder of the World Wide Web Foundation opted to write a letter to the girls at the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC) in Lagos.
In his letter, he states: When I visited you in Lagos during the 30th birthday of the web, you filled me with hope for the the web’s impact on our world because, as you bring new voices and experiences to the web, you will change it for the better.
The visit of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, to W.TEC in 2019 was part of his global tour to mark the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web (WWW). The exhibitions and presentations by beneficiaries of STEAM programs by W.TEC, left a lasting impression on Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
We at W.TEC are profoundly inspired by Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s work, thank him for his motivating message and appreciate TIME Magazine for sharing his message with the world.
Read more about the visit and read the letter from Sir Berners-Lee.
c.) Celebrated Safer Internet Day at the W.TEC Academy
Safer Internet Day is a day set aside to create awareness, among young people especially, of ways to use online tools safely. Digital technologies provide a world of possibilities at your fingertips. Yet, the internet also opens up certain risks to its users – especially the most vulnerable ones, such as children: privacy concerns, cyberbullying and disinformation.
Every year since 2017, W.TEC has supported the SID by organizing day-long programmes featuring educational and fun exercises and Staying Safe Online workshops for young people.
In 2020 W.TEC organized a SID event in Kwara State at St. Barnabas Secondary school, Ilorin – Kwara State for students from 13 schools across the state.
The programme was a day-long activity which featured fun exercises on what cyber crimes are all about. The was followed a workshop on Nigerian Internet Laws, enforcement, and staying safe online.
The evnt also featured keynote speaker, Mrs Olabimpe Olani - the Head of the National Library - Ilorin branch.
Read more about the event: https://wtec.org.ng/w-tec-holds-2020-safer-internet-day-in-kwara-state/
d.) Kicked off a new project “Digital Generation Youth” in South Africa
Another highlight of the year so far, has been the launch of the Digital Generation Youth project. This is a 2-year project aimed at developing new content, methods and activities to improve the quality of youth non-formal learning programmes for organisations in Nigeria, South Africa, Lithuania and the Netherlands. All partner organisations are delivering non-formal digital literacy and 21st century education programmes to young peoples.
The DGY project had its kick-off meeting in Port Elizabeth, South Africa with W.TEC Executive Director, Oreoluwa Lesi and Programme Manager, Folashade Braimoh representing the organisation.
A key aspect of the DGY project is the use of Digital Open Badges. Digital Open Badges are ways to recognise learning and experience achieved by completing some set activities. For every organisation we visited in Port Elizabeth, we had the chance to earn a badge by providing evidence of what we had learnt.
Read more: See our playlist of activities for which you can earn badges and read more about the visit to South Africa.
e.) Were nominated for the 2020 WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) Prizes
Early in January, we discovered that we had been nominated for the World Summit on the Information Society Prizes 2020 also known as the WSIS Prizes.
W.TEC was nominated in the 3rd category of the awards (C3: Access to information and knowledge) alongside 19 other amazing initiatives from around the globe. This nomination was a great way to start the year and it was an honour to be listed among the other impactful initiatives.
Read more: See the other finalists
f.) Participated in 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence
In November 2019, W.TEC participated in the 2019 – 16 Days of Activism programme for the Elimination of Violence against Women and girls for the 9th year in a row. The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign that kicks off annually on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day.
W.TEC supports the movement annually with a series of Staying Safe Online workshops for girls and women in secondary schools and higher institutions.
The workshops were scripted to reflect the 2019 theme of the campaign: “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands against Rape!” W.TEC’s 2019 workshops were held in 3 states across Nigeria for the first time to boost the reach of W.TEC’s campaign:
I.) In Lagos state in partnership with the United Nations Information Center (UNIC) and with speakers from the United States Information Service – Lagos and Project Alert.
2.) In Ogun State at Yewa College, Ilaro.
3.) In Kwara State at Lower Niger Basin Staff College, Ilorin.
Altogether over 140 girls participated in the workshops.
Read more: https://wtec.org.ng/w-tec-holds-2019-16-days-of-activism/
*******************
In all, this has been an uplifting start to the new year and decade.
Thank you for supporting and sharing our work. Because of you, we have been able to increase our reach and improve the quality of our programming.
Please continue to donate to our work. Also consider becoming a recurring donor and setting-up automatic monthly payments to us. And please share our work with others in your network.
Together, we can keep working to build a pipeline that supports girls and women throughout their journeys from early engagement to a career in technology and sciences. We thank you and our girls thank you too.
Warm regards,
Oreoluwa Lesi
*******************
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
ABOUT W.TEC & THE W.TEC ACADEMY:
The W.TEC Academy is an after-school technology programme for girls in public secondary schools, designed to inspire girls to pursue computer science careers. The girls go through a year-long computing curriculum, which includes Computer Architecture & Networking, Scratch Programming, Alice Programming and Digital Arts.
The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC) is a Nigerian nonprofit organisation committed to building a more inclusive technology ecosystem, with the next generation of women technology creators, entrepreneurs and leaders.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
