In Statements to the press, Cecilia Valdes Milian, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Communications’ (Mincom) Institutional communication said that this is the first time that Cuba will celebrate the date established by the International Telecommunications Union (UIT) for the fourth Thursday of every April.
Previously, she said, African and Asian nations joined the commemoration, above all, because only boys are focused on the technological sector. Cuba is not the case, said the specialist, it has an educational system that allows boys and girls at an early age, receive computer classes in primary school and continued through to the other educational levels.
However, Cuba joined the celebration this year because although the composition between sexes in Information and Telecommunications is similar, in some activities, women are still shy from what the country needs, she said.
Among them are related with computer programming, network administration and the development of software.
The Cuban women have carried out important contributions to the country’s technological development, she said, demonstrating that they are capable in working in other specialties within the sector where men continue to dominate said Valdes.
Valdes Milian explained, that Cuba needs for girls to express interest in an early age to mount and dismantle computers, learn how to program a video game, study through virtual books, interact with multimedia, insert themselves in areas where there are less women and choose among the university career in the field.
She highlighted the importance in guaranteeing the formation of the necessary professionals to respond to the challenges in this strategic sector as proposed in the guidelines approved in the 6th and 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, otherwise they will not be able to assume the missions conceived to computerizing society.
She informed that in the end, and starting from the approval of the policy to improve computerizing society by the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers, they will work in the elaboration of the Mincom’s gender strategy and the implementation of the policy which includes the participation of women in the technological sector.
The World Day of Girls in the TIC was approved in 2010 during a conference of the UIT in Guadalajara, Mexico, and is part of the promotion of gender equality policies and the empowerment of women through technology.
The International Telecommunications Union –specialized UN entity- is made up of 193 countries and over 700 entities of the private sector and academic institutions based in Geneva and has 12 regional office and worldwide.
Among its objectives is to extend the benefits of the TIC equally to the population and through its universal access facilitate the participation in the economy and world information society to benefit from them through the mobilization of technical, financial and human resources.
