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How girls shape tech on their own terms in Tanzania
As we celebrate the International Day of Girls in ICT on 24 April, inspiring stories from Tanzania highlight the courage, creativity, and determination of African girls who are transforming the digital landscape. These narratives showcase not only their remarkable achievements but also the evolving systems that are empowering and supporting them in their journey.
“Every girl has a dream,” says Vivian, a secondary school student from Tanzania, “maybe about digital skills, software, cybersecurity, or making different design applications. I would like to tell them that they need to keep up their efforts to achieve their dreams.”
Vivian is among the many Tanzanian girls who are discovering their impact through digital skills training and transforming their communities along the way. Her classmate Maria shares that “digital skills help me in learning different subjects, not only computer science… I get a lot of knowledge about the world.”
Behind these community successes is a growing network of global support including a partnership between UNESCO and Beijing Normal University for a project to close the digital divide for women and girls through education in Ghana and Tanzania.
“We are working,” explains Xinyi Niu, Programme Coordinator at UNESCO’s International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education (INRULED), “to train pre-service and in-service teachers on gender-responsive pedagogy to ensure they have the proper tools and approaches to nurture girls in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) learning and digital skills.”
At the continental level, UNESCO is collaborating with the African Union to build inclusive STEM ecosystems across Africa. During the 2024 Continental Conference on STEM, over 660 participants from 34 African countries emphasized and to implement practical, inclusive, and gender-transformative approaches to advance STEM on the continent.
For girls like Vivian and Maria, digital skills mean more than future jobs, they mean power, possibility, and belonging. “Girls can come up with different ideas to make different things with digital skills,” Vivian says, “so, I believe they can bring something new to this world.”
On this Girls in ICT Day, their stories remind us that technology’s future can, and must, be shaped by girls on their own terms.
