MTN Ghana Foundation has taken yet another giant leap in supporting girls’ education in ICT and STEM.
In partnership with Women in Tech Africa, MTN, on Friday organised the final event in its five-day ladies-apps camp challenge, the MTN Girl Code in Kumasi.
The MTN Girl Code provides a platform for young females to be trained in basic coding skills, apps development and business validation processes, in order to come up with technological solutions to societal problems.
Speaking to Ultimate Business after a business pitch, Data and Channel Manager for MTN Ghana, Northern Zone, encouraged young women in general not to hesitate in taking keen interest in science and technology courses.
According to Stephen Asare, the notion that such fields are for men is erroneous and that ladies should rather focus building on ideas in the technological space needed for the market.
Also it is the desire and goal of the only 4G mobile network operator, to increase the number of females who participate in its MTN Apps Challenge.
In this stead, the Ghana Chapter Lead for Women in Tech Africa, Selassie Dzikunu, expressed optimism that the network’s unflinching support will go a long way to develop the interest in STEM and ICT for the younger generation.
“We are going to be mentoring the winners and any of the girls who are still interested in applying to the MTN Apps Challenge”.
“Women in Tech Africa have a team of facilitators and technical advisers who will help the ladies polish up their projects to meet the standard requirement for entering into the MTN Apps Challenge.
“We also have other partners like HapaSpace, Mobile Web, Kumasi Hive who are ready to help their businesses incubate, accelerate and scale up”, Mrs. Dzikunu added.
Key projects that the Kumasi teams developed, included sanitation, breast cancer care, IT services, food industry and head potter business.
Winner of the MTN Girl Code Business Pitch, who developed a smart dustbin (an IOT project), urged other corporate bodies, institutions, individuals and government to all come on board to advance the future of science and technology.
Miss Agyirakwa Monney Bernice and Dorinda Nikoi Kotei-Sika, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students at the Kwame Nkrumah Science and Technology (KNUST) respectively took away a Ghs2,500 cash prize as winners while the first runner-up, B-Cure won Ghs1,500 cash prize.
