Women need ICTs to function in a digital world.

The lack of formal training and opportunities for girls to participate in accessing and generating knowledge will tragically ensure that the next generation of women in Africa, particularly in rural areas, is denied critical opportunities to benefit from technological innovations.

i-LIKE AFRICA, is a program designed to encourage ICT enabled social innovation and entrepreneurship by young women in Africa.

The Objective of i-LIKE AFRICA is to squarely anchor women run and/owned ICT enterprises as a key ingredient in Africa’s social and economic prosperity.

The Strategy is to encourage the establishment and growth of ICT based enterprises by immersing one million young women in Kenya in the i-LIKE AFRICA program over the next 5 years. Kenya will be the pilot program country, with an expectation to roll out i-Like Africa to other African countries year on year.

i-LIKE AFRICA will be implemented with participants being taken through 5 phases: Training in basic ICT and enterprise skills; Competitions to identify great ideas coupled with solid business models and plans; Incubation program that includes training and mentoring for selected participants; Finance forums with Venture Capital partners and a commercial bank; and Case publications of exemplary participants.

The training shall be carried out nationwide in all the 47 counties. A total of 200 000 women shall be taken through the program in 2012, translating to 33 334 women per month (an average of 700 pax per county per month). 200 trainers shall be trained and deployed to the counties to conduct the training.

The Budget for 2012 stands at USD 117m. Hardware and Software consists of 80% of the project. Our previous discussions with a software provider (an MNC) where part of their involvement would be the provision of the software, will translate into 40% of the budget. This will be a major boost to the program.

The project Launch is tentatively scheduled for Thursday 10th May 2012 at Sankara Nairobi.

The expected impact of the project, that will be captured in the Measurement and Evaluation include 200 000 women to be immersed in the program in 2012 in Kenya alone (1 000 000 young women by end of 2016); HIGH AWARENESS & UPTAKE of ICT entrepreneurship opportunities by women; Innovation and design of FEASIBLE BUSINESS MODELS by young women entrepreneurs and BRIDGING ENTREPRENEURS WITH POTENTIAL INVESTORS AND PARTNERS.

The quest for more partners is still going on, especially where hardware, connectivity and trainers' remuneration costs are concerned.

Membership to i-LIKE AFRICA Digital Divas Program is USD 18; which entitles one to participate in the program at no extra cost.

i-LIKE AFRICA is designed and driven by Woodside Africa Foundation (registered as Woodside Marketing), a social enterprise that is domiciled in Nairobi.

The Foundation designs and implements diverse, multi-sectoral programs that have social and economic impact in the African Region.

Problema

Globally, ICTs transform the way production is organized and information is shared. ICTs offer flexibility of time and space, a way out of isolation, and access to knowledge and productive resources. They are enabling tools for economic development and social change. These attributes make ICTs a valuable resource for women in developing countries, who often suffer from limited availability of time, social isolation, and lack of access to productive resources. Women need ICTs to get more information to carry out their productive, reproductive, and community roles. They need ICTs to conduct their businesses, as a service of employment and to work in the ICT industry. They need ICTs to find resources for themselves, their families, their work, and their communities. Young African women need to have a voice in their lives, their community, their government, and the larger world that shares their issues and problems. In summary, they need ICTs to function in a digital world. Excerpt from ‘IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). 2011. Capturing Technology for Development: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Activities in Information and Communication Technologies. SITUATION ANALYSIS The majority of African women continue to be excluded from access to digital technology. Forced to choose between spending resources on buying computers, subscribing to broadband or even a mobile phone on the one hand, and buying food for their families and meeting other very basic needs of survival on the other, it is clear what their choices will be. High levels of poverty and illiteracy, lack of training and skills, apprehensive perception towards technology, unequal sharing of care-giving responsibilities between women and men, and irregular or non-existent power supplies act as significant barriers to access and use of ICTs. These challenges do not only affect women and girls today. The lack of formal training and opportunities for girls to participate in accessing and generating knowledge will tragically ensure that the next generation of women in Africa, particularly in rural areas, is denied critical opportunities to benefit from technological innovations. In so doing, the power of ICTs as great mechanisms for expanding women’s knowledge and ability to negotiate for an equitable share of resources, and to facilitate their participation in democratic and governance processes, is completely undermined. The potential power of ICTs is further diluted by the popular view in the region that ICTs are commodities to be controlled, sold and bought rather than tools for development. i-LIKE AFRICA Digital Divas Program has been specifically and deliberately designed by the Woodside Africa Foundation to literally put netbooks in the hands of one million young African women in each of the African countries, starting with Kenya, coupled with basic ICT and enterprise skills. Excerpt from: Bridging The Digital Gender Divide In Africa A Policy Brief For The Summit Of The African Union Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - January 2010 http://www.femnet.or.ke/documents/Policy_Brief_ICTs.pdf

Solução

i-LIKE AFRICA will be implemented with participants being taken through 5 phases: 1. Certified Training in basic ICT and enterprise skills 2. Competitions to identify great ideas coupled with solid business models and plans. 3. Incubation program that includes training and mentoring for selected participants 4. Finance forums with Venture Capital partners and a commercial bank. 5. Case publications of exemplary participants. The training shall be carried out nationwide in all the 47 counties. A total of 200 000 women shall be taken through the program in 2012, translating to 33 334 women per month (an average of 700 pax per county per month). A total of 200 trainers shall be dispatched to the counties to conduct the training and guide participants in developing their Competition Entries. Participant registration is ongoing, with a Human Resources Recruitment company having been identified to spearhead, refine and vet the participants and manage the trainers. Competitions, Incubations and VC Forums shall be carried out in selected towns in the country. Exceptional and outstanding cases shall culminate into publications.

Exemplo

i-LIKE AFRICA, is a program designed to encourage ICT enabled social innovation and entrepreneurship by young women in Africa. The emphasis is on feasible business models that accelerate technology adoption in the region. The Objective of i-LIKE AFRICA is to squarely anchor women run and/owned ICT enterprises as a key ingredient in Africa’s social and economic prosperity. The Strategy is to encourage the establishment and growth of ICT based enterprises by immersing one million young women in Kenya in the i-LIKE AFRICA program over the next 5 years. Kenya will be the pilot program country, with an expectation to roll out i-Like Africa to other African countries year on year. Our Insight is ICT needs to be de-mystified to young African women for a robust uptake of successful ICT based enterprises to become a reality. The Target Market for i-LIKE AFRICA is exclusively female, aged between 17 to 35 years old, based in both urban and rural Africa, cutting across the socio – economic spectrum, with at least an advanced high school education.

Ofertas e demandas

There are small scale,numerous ICT programs that are driven by corporations for their CSR programs such as equipping education centres with PCs. The government also runs annual competitions on ICT related issues. These would be the competitors. However, we have turned these into collaborators by incorporating them into the program, where the solution is holistic and the community impact is huge.