We’re always going on about why IT is a great place for women to work – opportunities to travel abroad, the chance to make a difference, exciting projects. It’s all very well saying that but sometimes these words can go in one ear and out the other pretty quickly – so it’s great to see examples of real women doing great things with technology.
I recently heard about a partnership between Vodafone and the UN (the long winded version is the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Group Foundation Technology Partnership!) This is a programme which aims to implement technology in developing countries – to allow both general development and to help with disaster relief.
Vodafone works with womenintechnology and they told us about their Secondment programme where their employees are placed with the World Food Programme for a year. They’re given a grant to cover a modest salary and their expenses, all the support they need and the chance to really make a difference to people’s lives. This year, four people are taking part in the programme – one being Salma Farouque from Vodafone Australia who’s now working as an ICT Specialist for Emergency Telecommunications in Kampala, Uganda after spending seven years working as a Solutions Designer in the Technology Division in Sydney.
During her year in Uganda, Salma will work as an IT Specialist, to support co-ordination in countries in the Eastern, Central and Southern Africa region. Due to the ongoing conflicts in the area, the need for emergency security telecommunications is greater than ever and the role Salma is working on this year, will make a huge difference to humanitarian workers from 30 UN agencies and around 100 non government organisations in the region. You can read her blog here.
It’s great to see that working in technology really can make a difference – and it’s even better to see female technologists being involved. Let’s hope we see more schemes like this in the future as it sounds like a brilliant opportunity.
womenintechnology.co.uk - the blog 