Given adequate technical and financial resources, my proposal titled “i-village for Girls in Africa (i-GA)” is a mission to employ information and communication technology to attain fundamental and global impact for girls, starting with Africa. In today’s Information age, global economy and free markets, it is crucial to ensure that women and girls have timely access to information that will equip them to contribute meaningfully to developments in emerging fields such as biotechnology, informatics, computer science, and nanotechnology. I strongly believe that a project aimed at the bridging the global digital canyon, by emphasizing training in science, technology, engineering, computer science, and math (STECM)-related fields, especially amongst women and girls in developing parts of the world, will yield impacts of huge global proportions. More than ever, female STECM education is at the heart of innovation and creativity for social, health and economic development. It has the power to stimulate economic growth, reduce poverty and inequality, enhance health standards, and promote social cohesion, tolerance and good governance.
My contention is that African girls must be aggressively recruited as faithful custodians of technology, innovation and inter-disciplinary research that will help Africa solve Africa’s problems, and result in ripple global effects. Educated girls become educated mothers who have fewer, healthier and more educated children, higher incomes, and are less likely to be exposed to poor health conditions and situations that could lead to epidemics such as the HIV one. Despite the widely known fact that female education is a crucial component of nation building for lasting and stable democracies, and a prerequisite for creating and sustaining a healthy, free, prosperous Africa, girls continue to represent an untapped resource for Africa’s hope of gradually but surely stepping into the digital age. In Senator Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” he describes a tour of the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California led by Larry Page that culminated in an introduction to a three dimensional viewing on a flat screen panel, of the Internet system’s traffic patterns. On this screen, thick cords of light representing real time internet searches rising from the surface of the globe toward space, color coded by language, turn to swaths of darkness as the globe spun to Africa – a continent of vast human and mineral resources with over 900 million people – largely disconnected from the rest of the i-world. Obviously, the pressing need to innovatively overhaul, adapt, and expand the scope for female STECM education in Africa cannot be overemphasized.
The goal of i-GA is to interest and prepare more African girls in careers in STECM fields while instilling vision, passion, leadership, discipline, accountability, responsibility to community, and the highest ethical standards. By providing access to information, technology tools, training and resources to help African girls in ages 11 through 18 realize their fullest potentials, i-GA will foster wealth creation, reduce unemployment and create self-sustaining communities. The overall vision is to empower African girls to be technologically-aware leaders of tomorrow, and take over the reign of affairs that will deliver lasting change to Africa and indeed the world.
To begin, I propose a pilot i-GA training center that will be duplicated across other parts of Africa. The i-GA model center will be physically located in an existing all-girls boarding high school, many of which exist in sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria. The collaboration with STECM departments of near-by higher institutions and Universities will be enlisted. The i-GA project will seek to provide a fully equipped state-of-the-art computer laboratory with 50-60 multimedia-capable computers to serve a campus of about 300 female students – a ratio of about one computer to five students which I believe is adequate for student productivity. Every student will also be provided with a laptop for their use while at school. A high-speed wireless local area network infrastructure via a broadband satellite link will connect the i-GA campus to the Internet via broadband satellite, and smartboards, projectors and video conferencing equipment will be provided for the computer lab. With the introduction of computers, there will be a need to train and employ computer technicians and network administrators to manage and maintain i-GA’s network.
At i-GA centers, computer science and programming will be introduced as a subject to be taught. This will require endowments and fellowships to support computer science faculty and students at near-by Universities to get involved in providing instruction. Additional training workshops will be necessary to equip science and math teachers of host schools with the necessary technical and technology related skills to work hand-in-hand with visiting faculty for effective instruction, leveraging the computer lab. Fundamental, to the success of i-GA is the collaborative efforts between local i-GA campuses and their technology and education partners from more advanced nations through virtual classrooms technology and multimedia conferencing. In this case, interactive e-classes where students may remotely participate in lectures being taught from any where in the world, can be offered at i-GA campuses. Providing easy access to online books, digital libraries and open source software to deliver quality, meaningful, relevant and cost-effective instruction will be the strategy.
Furthermore, it will be necessary to encourage the active participation of i-GA’s partners in programs such as organizing on- and off-site trainings, seminars/webinars, mentoring and research, through endowments that fund such endeavors. International student exchange programs will be encouraged for i-GA girls, and curriculum developed and approved by i-GA’s technical and institutional partners. By laying the responsibilities of productivity, accountability, and support for i-GA’s campuses on local chapters, a sense of ownership will result. Benefiting schools and communities will be required to contribute towards the maintenance costs of i-GA facilities. To drive innovation, self directed scientific enquiry, and real world problem-solving, there will be a requirement on students to deliver research-based and globally competitive end-of-term projects that address local community problems.
Finally, i-GA’s curriculum will emphasize the development of character such as integrity, leadership, ethical values, discipline, and community service in African girls. As a female Engineering PhD student, I have learned that academic excellence in today’s technology-relevant fields such as computer science, lays a solid foundation for a meaningful contribution to our society. I believe however that more important than our technical expertise, is the content of our character, which guides us to apply knowledge toward bettering the lives of others. It is a most compelling truth, that empowering the next generation of African female leaders is the lasting solution to ending poverty on the continent. Dedication to the vision of i-GA is a crucial component to achieving this step. My proposal of i-GA is a movement towards the empowerment of a group of people – African women – that would yield dividends on a global level, yet beyond our wildest imaginations.
Unoma Okorafor
