INTRODUCTION:

 

“ICTs for Girls” is an endeavor to spur the socio economic uplift of this very important segment of our society. The primary purpose of the program is to provide ICT facilities to increase the employability potential of the girls in Pakistan, so that they are financially empowered to take care of their families and themselves. Information Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure, latest hardware, high speed Internet, software and trained human resource has been provided to all facilities. This financial sustainability is the basic driver of this initiative. Once our future mothers are skillful enough to take care of themselves independently, our future would be more promising. In collaboration with Microsoft, teachers are primarily trained on Super Skills for 21st century that are listed below; in addition to the technical domains i.e. cloud computing, web designing, coding, Introduction to databases, basic computer programming, basics of software design and development.

1. Coding 

2. Computing 

3. Coaching

4. Communication

Under the umbrella of ICTs for Girls, Ministry of IT & Telecom through Universal Service Fund is running the following two projects:

 

1) Establishment of Computer Labs in Women Empowerment Centers

 

Under this project 144 Women Empowerment Centers and other Educational Institutions have been provided with ICT Model Labs. Women empowerment Centers is an initiative of Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal devoted to capacity building of women in un-served and underserved areas of Pakistan. Through this program over 15,000 girls will be trained annually at state of the art computer labs under the coaching and training program of Microsoft. 

 

2) Establishment of Computer Labs in Government Girls Institutions of Islamabad Capital Territory

 

Under this project 226 Schools of Islamabad have been provided with ICT Model Labs. In addition to the equipment, 202 teachers have also been placed at these institutions. These teachers have been trained by Microsoft under Train the Trainer program on 21st Century Super Skills. This project will help in making over 110,000 girl students “Computer Literate” studying in Islamabad’s schools and bring them at par with students elsewhere in the world.

 

An ICT for Girls website has also been established to allow collaboration and learning opportunities to the beneficiaries.  Looking forward all the students of this program will get trained on freelancing and other IT skills through DiGi Skills program of Ministry of IT and Telecom.