In this project, the Egyptian compayn Motoon works for a free enabled, connected and gender conscious tech community that empowers and supports social development and wellbeing. Technology is not just a tool, it is a space of possibilities and an opportunity to rethink questions of need and change in the broader socio-political context.
The aim of the project is to build a community of skilled female techies that ensures knowledge and skill sharing and enables women to support one another. Also, the project seeks to plant a seed for building a gender sensitive and gender-balanced tech community and to create an online database of Egyptian women who work in the technology field.
Facts about the tech project with Motoon
- Local partner: Motoon
- Country: Egypt
- Thematic area: Legal reform and equal distribution of resources (LRED)
- Duration: 12 months with start date 1 July 2019
Background
In Egypt as well as globally women are under-represented in the tech field. Women are users but not creators. Few women are working with hard-core programming. Women need the knowledge and skills to customise technology and adapt it to their own needs.
The lack of women in the tech field also affects the underlying codes and algorithms. Thus, instead of technology playing an enabling role in women’s lives, it makes them more vulnerable and adds digital threats to the daily threats they are exposed to.
Activities
Motoon’s activities in this project are:
- Noon Tech Meet-ups that build the capacity of female techies.
- School of Tech that targets university students and fresh graduates studying IT.
- Women for women tech workshops where trainers and trainees are all women.
- Events about women and technology.
Approach
As Motoon aims to build the overall capacity of female techies, the company works to indtroduce a group of university students and fresh graduates to concepts of Open Culture, Gender and Technology. Furthermore, the approach is to connect the community of skilled female techies with civil society at large to establish the connection and knowledge of and need for female techies.
Donor
This project is financed by the Danish-Arab Partnership Programme under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Motoon carries out advocacy for women’s empowerment and for bridging the gender gap in the tech field at all levels. In this way, Motoon aims at growing the tech community with new gender conscious calibers. This also happens through advocacy for more gender-balanced tech events by availing the database to event organisers and curators, looking for speakers and trainers