The International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, while also making a call to action for strengthening gender equality and accelerating women’s empowerment.
It celebrates women’s contributions to society, raises awareness about the fight for gender parity, and inspires support for organizations that help women globally.
International Women’s Day is observed in March every year to celebrate women’s rights and inspire people to act in the ongoing fight for gender equality. The United Nations declares the theme for the International Women’s Day on yearly basis and this year’s theme is: “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. The United Nations Observance of IWD recognizes and celebrates the women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education.
This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-67), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.
This theme has been chosen as women continue to fight for equality, entering male dominated sectors of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The theme also encourages advances in gender equality using the emerging innovations of the digital era of society.
A gender-responsive approach to innovation, technology and digital education can increase women and girls’ awareness regarding their rights and civic engagement. Advancements in digital technology offer immense opportunities to address development and humanitarian challenges, and to achieve the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately, the opportunities of the digital revolution also present a risk of perpetuating existing patterns of gender inequality.
Growing inequalities are becoming increasingly evident in the context of digital skills and access to technologies, with women being left behind as the result of this digital gender divide. The need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education is therefore crucial for a sustainable future.
International women’s day create an opportunity to reflect and celebrate women’s contributions and successes. Women issues are globally addressed in the twelve (12) critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform of Action. IWD 2023 will explore the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities.
The event will also spotlight the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces and addressing online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence.
The theme for this year IWD will be bringing women and other marginalized groups into technology results in more creative solutions and has greater potential for innovations that meet women’s needs and promote gender equality.
It is a call to reassert the equality of women and men, where women can reshape their own future and participate fully in the society through the digital space. In this regard the IWD 2023 National Steering Committee has come up with a Trailblazer’s award.
The awards recognize and celebrate women, allies, and organizations across Kenya for their outstanding contribution to women social economic empowerment through technology industry.
Despite the global challenges, we continue to see incredible dedication, transformation and innovation from individuals and organizations alike. Women in tech are gaining ground as the technology industry makes slow but steady progress in shrinking its gender gap, and women in tech leadership are making the fastest advances. The 2023 Awards wants to shine a light on the impact of all the transformations, innovations, and growth of the past 2 year.
The judges are looking for individuals, organizations and initiatives that have gone far and beyond, and that have demonstrated a huge impact on businesses, employees, and the wider industry. This includes outstanding industry talent and role models, as well as the employers that are implementing diversity initiatives that continue to spearhead real change in the sector.
The awards will recognize the most influential women technology leaders in Kenya who have demonstrated considerable experience in leading innovation and became leaders and role models in the Kenyan tech industry.
2023 Nominations are now OPEN. Leading organizations and individuals can submit nominations for the highest achievers in tech leadership and nominate people who have made powerful contributions and demonstrated expertise in driving business value. We also invite nominations from individuals who believe they have been at the forefront of disruption and have played a key role in helping use of tech as a driver for growth and business value and especially in promotion of women’s empowerment
All submissions will be assessed by our panel of judges and industry stakeholders and awardees will be selected after a careful review and benchmarked against the best-in-class performance standards.
One of the key highlights of the IWD will be sparking a conversation on the gender imbalance that exists in the industry and discussing vital steps that can be taken to increase women participation in Tech and help them thrive in leadership roles. Driving the conversation forward will be companies that have played a pivotal role in striving for a diverse, inclusive and engaging environment for their employees, have addressed these biases to retain female talent and supported them to advance to senior roles.
We know that female representation in tech industry is a problem and therefore we need more role models in the industry to inspire the next generation of tech talent. These awards truly celebrate the experts who we firmly believe are trailblazers in tech.
The Women trail blazers Awards is designed to help promote women social economic empowerment, by recognizing and promoting talented women, and other success stories in IT.
Women can bring a fresh approach and offer unique perspectives to meet challenges, solve problems, and design new products. They can also bring more women into the tech fold, and since technology often offers high salary opportunity, their presence in the industry can help reduce the overall gender pay gap.
The Categories for the Awards will be;
- Economic and financial inclusion for women and girls through innovation and technology
- Contribution to greater participation or support for women in leadership and decision making by adopting innovative technology
- Easy access to digital platforms for women and girls’ survivors of GBV to access services
- Contribution to women’s peace and security through the use of media platforms and other innovative digital and social media spaces
- Digital Transformation Women Leader of the Year
- Social impact Award
- Resilience Award
- Bunge award
- He for She
- County Award