3 ways to solve technology access barriers for girls

Every year, the international community comes together to commemorate the International Girls in ICT Day to raise awareness about the gender gap in the technology sector. Nonetheless, every year we continue to hear the same statistics: Women are 14 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone. Moreover, 25 percent fewer women and girls are online than men and boys; this gap grows over 40 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

That begs the question: What does the international community still needs to do to solve the gender gap in the access and use of technology?

Closing the usage gap between girls and boys is important for the promotion of the information society. As interactions between governments and society continue to rely more on information and communication technologies, it becomes crucial that the voices of women and girls continue to be represented in the digital world.

Tackling the gender gap early

The easiest way to solve the technology gender gap is by designing programs that target girls. Interventions including Girls Who Code, IREX’s Tech Age Girls and Microsoft’s DigiGirlz seek to expose girls to the transformative power that technology can have in their lives by building their ICT skills during the primary and secondary education stages. However, data from a longitudinal study realized by the University of Tennessee found that the digital gap starts to widen as early as the first grade, suggesting that interventions to increase access to technologies should start during earlier stages.

Exposing young girls to technologies such as computers and tablets allows them to gain familiarity with these technologies, and become active learners as they get older. The creation and growth of initiatives such as One Laptop Per Child support this thesis. However, as the evaluations of OLPC have shown, computers by themselves have no effect on learning and that is the enabling environment. On the other hand, support networks — for example, family and teachers — that incentivize and monitor use of technology have the potential of improving literacy and digital skills. Consequently, solving the technology gap becomes a community-centered effort that requires the support of schools, families and peers.

Best practices for implementing technology programs for girls

Solving the technology access gender gap is a worthwhile effort. According to the 2013 Intel report “Women and the Web,” enabling Internet access for 150 million women would contribute an estimated $13 billion to $18 billion to the annual gross domestic product across 144 developing countries. The report also states that increasing Internet access in developing countries would improve education outcomes for more than 500 million women.

However, as the experience from OLPC shown us, Internet by itself is not the answer. Technology access programs should follow three basic principles to guarantee the inclusion of girls:

1. Create gender sensitive opportunities. The challenges associated with increasing girls’ interaction with technology are a reflection of existing social norms. Recognizing existing gender biases in learning opportunities, and finding ways to address them improves the degree of interaction that girls have with computers. For example, incentivizing girls to use computers in pairs or small groups has been shown to improve learning outcomes.

2. Develop free content that is attractive to girls. According to Paul Gorski, founder of pro-education equity coalition EdChange, the majority of the content, games, or instructional material that is found online is often designed by males, in a manner that excludes girls and women from the “computer” culture. Consequently, it becomes crucial that programs that seek to promote technology access develop and share free and open content that is relevant for girls and women.

3. Embed gender within all aspect of programs. Bridging the technology gender gap will not be solved by solely including more girls into our programs or by passively placing computers in schools or libraries. Solving the technology gender gap is about building skills and changing mentalities. Programs should aim to collect gender and age-disaggregated data to guide project implementation and to understand the real impact of these programs in girls.

New technologies, new contents, same challenges

Knowledge of computers, tablets, mobiles and other information technologies is becoming more embedded into educational and vocational trainings. Given that girls and women have less access to technology; their educational and economic opportunities are greatly reduced. Developing programs and initiatives that not only expose girls to computers and tablets from early stages becomes crucial for any development actors.

There is an existing global movement toward the creation and systemization of open education resources and massive online learning courses as alternative and supplementary tools for education. These initiatives will continue to leave girls behind if they do not figure out how to get more girls to access these resources, improve their education outcomes and raise economic and physical well-being.

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