IT Girls is a joint initiative by UNDP, UNICEF, and UN WOMEN, which originally emerged as an authentic volunteer initiative in 2015, inspired by an internal UN innovation challenge involving young female staff. Since 2015, from a volunteer effort relying strongly and solely on the volunteers’ zeal, IT Girls has evolved into a resourced initiative delivering planned and structured interventions.
The overall objective of the initiative is to fill the digital gender gap, promote equal opportunities for girls and boys in education and access to technology, and foster gender equality in the marketplace, workplace, and community.
More specific objectives of the IT Girls initiative in this increasingly digitized world include:
Increasing the knowledge of women and girls, and their awareness of the importance of being involved in the field of ICT.
Increasing their competitiveness and digital literacy, thus empowering them and seeing their resilience to exploitation, abuse and risks strengthened, while building a stronger, better skilled and equipped labor force in BiH.
High-quality digital skills provided to girls and women
Vocational training, employment and workplace standards in the area of human resource management
Advocacy and confidence-building for women and girls
The IT Girls initiative is a gender-transformative initiative that provides girls with opportunities to learn about IT-related areas from primary school, follows them through secondary school and university, and eases their access to the labor market, by working with the IT business sector to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace.
Since 2016, IT Girls has been empowering girls and young women to enter and advance careers in the ICT sector.
With over $15,000 raised through the first crowdfunding campaign coordinated by UN in BiH, the initiative equipped 10 primary schools with Arduino equipment and manuals for the IT Girls Clubs which resulted in introducing an exclusive way of learning about STEM.
IT Girls partnered with 7 Ministries of Education in both entities and the Department of Education of Brčko District in 22 primary and 28 high schools across the country.
More than 400 girls are attending IT Girls Clubs as extracurricular activity in these schools.
IT Girls designed the curricula and implemented 19 #PostaniITGirl face-to-face and online training sessions for 200 girls, focusing on developing their programming and business skills.
IT Girls designed and piloted an exclusive IT Girls Mentorship program: 30 young women mentees and 29 female mentors completed two cycles of mentorship, with mentees reporting increased confidence, IT and soft skills; 117 girls and women from 20 different communities in BiH participated in mentorship training on communication and presentation skills, time management, career orientation, writing CVs and motivational letters, and social media and online security.
IT Girls partnered with the BIT Alliance (the largest association of IT companies in BiH) in the implementation of Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). Ten (10) companies developed concrete Action Plans for the integration of WEPs into their internal organizational contexts, and eight (8) companies have become WEP signatories.
The first Network of Women in Tech in the country was established.
IT Girls has reached girls and young women in more than 30 communities of BiH (through face-to-face and online activities).
IT Girls collaborated with more than 60 external partners.
