Spider have published an interesting article that focuses on youth, gender and and digitally mediated democratic processes. The main focus of the article is the East African ICT for Democracy Network; "established to stimulate collaboration and to build stronger impact and sustainability of the participating projects. The network aims to utilize a range of ICTs, namely mobile phones, computers/internet, radio, television and newspapers in their activities. There are also interests and initiatives within the network to develop applications to aid in project management."

The article notes the dominance of young technically-inclined women in this network: "That African women actively participate in democratic processes or are technological developers are rare occurrences in themselves. The confluence of these two processes is unprecedented."

The article continues: "In the context of East African cultures young women are placed on the margins of public debate and technological skills. This marginalization should be understood within the context of socialization processes in East Africa and how they structure expressions of gender... However the mutable ways of culture, and education, have begun to challenge these frameworks, along with ICT. Wisdom and knowledge have also until ICT been passed on to the youth by the adults. As technologies proliferate every aspect of life reliance on techno-savvy youth by many non-technical adults has begun to challenge the adult counterparts’ supremacy of world knowledge (Wamala, 2010) and by extension, leadership. It would also seem that some gender inequalities encountered within youth are likewise being redressed through ICT. Ubiquitous ICTs such as mobile phones are further challenging the dimensions of socially constructed roles with social media tools Twitter and Facebook, opening up opportunities for inviting the public into the private domain and vice versa."

"...Studies have shown that female role models are particularly important for girls who wish to pursue subjects or careers dominated by men (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006), to this point Hilda interjects that her passion stems from “wanting to understand how to make the data sets or technology I use and develop more meaningful and innovative to the users and community at large”. Asked who her role model(s) were or are it is noteworthy the important role family plays coupled with external influence. “A role model to me is someone who encourages me to believe I can get to where they are and I look up to their behaviour, be it their leadership qualities or advice that I want to see modeled in me. Most of all open-minded people in my life especially in today’s society. From my parents who remind me of what is really important by being my mentors to individuals who have passion in technology like the late Steve Jobs to Sheryl Sandberg COO of Facebook”.

What is poignant in Hilda’s response is the reference to open-minded people. As such an environment that nurtures one’s passion and interests is just as important as one’s aspirations. Hilda continued from this point with “Many of the people outside my work respond positively to the kind of work we as the team of iHub research is conducting, as it’s based on seeking to facilitate local ICT research capacity building and to conduct local ICT qualitative and quantitative research in Africa. In our SPIDER supported project (Mobile governance) we hope to Leverage the extremely high mobile penetration and uptake of mobile applications across Kenya, by engaging with communities to use mobile phones as an effective monitoring tool to increase citizen participation and enhance faster service delivery spurring action from the different service providers and stakeholders”.

ICTs hold many promises with regards to being enablers in bridging various gaps in society. The Arab spring illustrates that ICTs can play a role in making governments accountable to citizens. ICTs can similarly address the unequal opportunities specifically regarding women. With the right incentives, young ladies like Hilda, can play a critical role steering sub-Saharan Africa towards progressive change. But as suggested by Hilda the young ladies themselves must develop this interest and if the East African ICT4Democracy Network is anything to go by, some certainly have."

Reposted from: http://www.spidercenter.org/news/gender-youth-and-digital-democratic-processes-east-africa