GIRLS AND WOMEN IN IT. MORE AND MORE WOMEN ARE SUCCEEDING IN THIS FIELD, AND STEREOTYPES ABOUT WOMEN IN IT ARE DISAPPEARING.

Girls and women in IT. More and more women are succeeding in this field, and stereotypes about women in IT are disappearing.
Digitization encompasses more and more areas of life, and knowledge of programming languages is beginning to become a pressing necessity. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of girls and women working in the IT field worldwide, and this, implicitly, has a positive effect on the economic development of the community.

For these reasons, but also because they are committed to supporting girls and women to pursue a technical career, the National Association of ICT Companies with the support of UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment) and Sweden’s financial support under the “Empowering Women in Technology” Project launched a comprehensive IT empowerment program for women and girls.
At the first edition of the program, 50 girls and women from the Republic of Moldova benefited from scholarships to study Java Fundamentals, SQL Fundamentals or Cisco course, after which they had the opportunity to obtain international certification. The courses were provided based on the educational programs of the world leader Oracle , and the training included state-of-the-art technologies, innovative learning methods and techniques with a proven impact in developing the skills and competencies required by the IT industry.

The scholarships offered managed to change the lives of the participants and give them the confidence to pursue their dreams.

“Women have shown that they do as well as men in programming…”

Irina is 24 years old and is a Junior Software Developer, Application Development Team Lead in an international company and loves her job. But until this stage was reached, a long path of knowledge and courage followed. The field of information technology entered her life in the 10th grade and since then go arm in arm every day.

Irina Iurciuc, IT specialist: “Since high school I knew that I would choose a career in IT, in fact I am the only one of my colleagues who have embraced this field. Then, however, I did not realize the specifics of the sphere, but I was inspired by some young programmers, with whom I participated in a professional launch project. Later, I attended the Faculty of Computers, Informatics and Microelectronics at TUM, and during my maternity leave I got, through a letter of intent, an IT scholarship for women at Tekwill. Before applying, we analyzed several job offers to understand the requirements of employers. I chose a course in which I learned to acquire practical skills in what I knew less and to help me get a job. The SQL Fundamentals course gave me enough knowledge to be able to pass two conversations brilliantly, during which I was tested including in the chapter studied at Tekwill, and to be employed.”

The young woman says that it was easy for her to integrate into the new job, because the stereotypes related to women and girls in IT are already a thing of the past. Over time, women have shown that they do just as well as men in programming.

Irina Iurciuc, IT specialist: “Life takes on even more color when you start working. And if you work in an interesting field, where you can develop professionally, all you have to do is enjoy what you do. In this field, women began to impose their positions and show beautiful results. It is important to have desire, perseverance, to make an effort and to be supported by those close to you. The field of information technologies is a complex one, and the work process includes many stages, the more you put them into practice, the easier you understand them. In IT there is a very important term – TEAM. Here we work in a team and colleagues help each other, here there is no competition, ideas and initiatives are welcome, there are no limits and there is not even a dress code. In IT, employers do their best to make their employees feel as comfortable as possible and work as efficiently as possible. We have a lot of opportunities, it is enough to have courage and take the first step, later this field attracts you and it is difficult to stop.”

Irina is convinced that IT is the profession of the future and that there will continue to be great challenges in this field. She encourages all girls and women who want a career in this field to be determined, with well-defined goals and thus will succeed.

Ana Chirița, Strategic Projects Director, National Association of ICT Companies: “The purpose of this initiative is to support ladies in accelerating their IT career, reprofiling in the IT field or simply knowing or gaining the necessary knowledge, which could help to find a job with technical specialization. At the first edition of this program, the beneficiaries were the ladies who really needed the skills which were taught, and many of them were mothers with small children at home and found time to participate in the program. These scholarships gave them the chance for financial independence and the opportunity to get a better job.”

Lucreția Ciurea, monitoring and evaluation specialist at UN Women Moldova: “Ensuring gender equality and empowering women is the basic mandate of UN Women, as gender inequality exists in everyday life. In the labor market, for example, we see that jobs that are better paid are held by men. That is why we wanted to offer girls opportunities to develop in this field, to become professionals, specialists, or leaders in the field of ICT, and this program offers them the necessary opportunities to assert themselves.”

In June 2018, the National Association of ICT Companies, in collaboration with UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment) with the financial support of Sweden, launched a comprehensive technology empowerment initiative. The main objective of the project is to promote gender equality through information and communication technologies and to raise awareness that information and communication technologies are tools that enable gender equality and women’s empowerment and the creation of a society in which women and men can contribute and participate substantially.The project “Empowering women in technology” is implemented in partnership with the Project “Development of the Center of Excellence in ICT” funded by the United States Agency for International Development and Sweden.