Claudia Morrell
EP6: Emerging People Session
Creating a New Strategy for Gender in the Information Society: Empowering Women in ICT

SUMMARY:

Your panel is addressing the efforts to mainstream gender into the ICT4D movement. Can you provide some examples of how gender is integrating into ICT4D efforts around the world?

We are very interested in this issue. While there are been a number of excellent projects focused on women specifically, we think it's very important to ensure that women are very integrated as participants and leaders. To be part of the knowledge society women need not only to benefit but also to shape it. They need to be on the table for mainstream initiatives where decision making is happening and where primary information is shared. Women often have unique issues and concerns that are not reflected in in ICTs. Examples includes development of technology when women are not part of the design. We want women not only to benefit from the knowledge, but we want their content and ideas represented on the Internet and that they benefit from the wealth that technology has generated, so they need to be where the projects are happening. Recently, in Tunis, we worked with the World Federation of Engineering Organizations to set a standing committee on Women, so that these leaders will ensure that women are engaged. I'm very excited of what GKP is doing by opening their conference and looking very critically at how women can be engaged, looking at gender as a component, having panels specifically in women, panellists etc.

What are the challenges of mainstreaming gender into ICT initiatives today?

Having worked in the process, there-'s a lot of lessons learned. You really need somebody at the table in terms of leadership, you need the mainstream organization to be really committed to gender. It really makes a difference. Oftentimes people who don't work at this space don't realize it because they're not familiar with it. From the initial invitations that get sent out to the final evaluations that get collected, everything needs to be looked at with a gender glance. The major challenge is not people to talk about gender or think about it, but to get an understanding of how that happens. So our biggest challenge has been to keep tapping folks in the shoulder and reminding them things that need to be looked at and thought trough. We are trying to make sure that the taskforce and the gender cluster of GK3 are really successful at the conference. You have to talk to many people, keep reminding them and showing what you're doing. But GK3 has been very willing and helpful to think these things trough.

What are your expectations from GK3? How can GK3 become a real milestone in the history of ICT4D?

I think it already has. We are really looking really carefully at what we're doing and its impacts. Because if you don't have gender fully integrated, by the time you get to the conference is too late. When we look at the panels, not all of them have men and women but we see a high percentage of men and women, and you clearly see a willingness and a thoughtfulness when you ask people to meet that standard, and they've done it. I have not had a complaint from anybody, everybody from all over the world, when asked to identify someone to represent a topic, without loosing quality of speakers, nobody had a problem finding women. With a few exceptions in high tech areas, where there can be a challenge. We will be sitting in a number of panels listening and seeing how panels really address the issue of gender in their presentations, we'll be looking for interviews and focus group about how men and women experienced gender in the conference. I think the GK3 conference will be a milestone in this.