Empower the next generation of girls in technology

While we are designing, planning and implementing the activities of 2023 to boost young women's interest and development in STEM disciplines, we look back at an incredible year, with many key milestones to making real progress on reducing the gender gap in technology. 

We deepened our proposals so that young women in the region could start, develop and project their paths in the technological ecosystem. In addition, we advanced in the generation of evidence with new research on the gender gap in technological careers in order to add data to the public discussion. This is a huge milestone thanks to the chosen methodology which allows the generated statistics to be internationally comparable to advance data of the gender gap and promote new analyses. We invite you to learn about the main findings reading the full research: “study on the gender gap in the Argentinian University System.”

We implemented a comprehensive journey for young women from 13 to 23 years old through free motivation, training and continued support instances. We diversified our proposals with on-site, virtual and hybrid spaces.

1. Motivation. We organized open and recreational days together with companies that are leaders in the sector to inspire young women to take their first steps in technology together. 
2. Initial Training. 2,000 young women from 15 countries took their first steps in technology as creators of digital solutions with social impact in three programs.
3. Specific Training. We designed and launched our first courses on web development and UX to provide young women with technical skills so they can strengthen their academic and professional development in technological areas.
4. Future Development. We created interdisciplinary proposals for the whole training journey to support young women in their personal and professional growth, such as our first mentoring program, training and workshops given by professional women, full-stack certifications and our initiative, Young Professionals in IT.

We also developed a periodic data collection instrument for all CET young women that will allow us to learn about their demographics, interests and paths in technology. 

Go to https://chicasentecnologia.org/reporte-2022/ to learn more about our opportunities. 

Thank you for your support!

13 important investigations and surveys of our own data on perspectives and challenges associated with the gender gap in technology, in collaboration with important institutions such as INTAL-BID, equal, Ashoka, and NextJournal, have allowed Chicas en Tecnología to design and develop evidence-based programs that, since 2015, have already strengthened interest among more than 11,600 young women from 18 countries in Latin America.

With an integral roadmap that addresses concepts ranging from motivation and training to professional development, CET achieves a real transformation of thousands of young women who acquire soft, impact and technical skills,as the last years survey shows:  80.2% clarified their vision regarding their work or academic future; 88.4% arouse their interest in studying, working or conducting research in technological areas; 93.2% addressed the issues on technology that are relevant to them; 80.7% aimed to learn more about the training and development opportunities in technology.

In addition, interest in further training is reflected among more than 5000 young women who make up the CommunityCET, which is an innovative space of reference, accompaniment and networking for graduates of the programs with more opportunities to enhance their projects and trajectories, consolidate their vocation and deepen their knowledge.

CET co-created its solutions alongside more than 100 partnerships from the public sector, civil society, universities, the scientific world and companies in the region. With its partnership strategy, CET creates sustainable value and multiplies connections in the ecosystem, mobilizing and exchanging knowledge, technical capacity, technology and financial resources to mainstream a gender perspective across all sectors.

Lucia S. testimony and success story reinforces the impact of CET´s integral strategyto tackle young women's fears about studying and pursuing careers in STEM:

“Until age 16, I thought sitting in front of the computer was the most boring thing to do. I participated in a Chicas en Tecnología program that took place in my town, and that's when I first stepped into the exciting world of technology. I realized that I could make a living from technology and also help people in many ways. (...) Over the years, Chicas en Tecnología has always been supporting me and helping me grow. In 2020 I was going through my last year of high school and at that time they helped me start studying web development, through a scholarship at Acamica. And in 2021 I decided to move home to Buenos Aires, where I acquired my first formal position in technology.” 

Links:

• Research launched in 2022
• Web Page