By Chinenye Anuforo
Pollicy a multi- award winning feminist technology collective based in Uganda will launch its digital ambassadors program in honour of the International Women’s Day celebration.
This initiative is dedicated to bringing swift solutions to the problems and continued prevalence of the digital gender divide that disportionately affect young women across Uganda, Tanzania and the larger African continent by fostering the absence of economic well being on the continent.
Pollicy believes that through the upskilling and intentional inclusion of more young women in the digital space, young women can get access to digital tools and exposure to more meaningful digital use, hence the implementation of innovative initiatives like the Digital Ambassadors program that provide customized solutions which aim to close the digital gender divide through the creation of access to technology, digital literacy & online safety.
Neema Iyer-Founder and Managing Director at Pollicy is hoping that the Digital Ambassadors Program will promote initiatives and projects that will tackle the great societal challenges and biases such as harmful societal norms and inequitable access to education that have encouraged the marginalization and exclusion of women in participating and benefiting from the growing digital ecosystem in Africa.
She says: “The Digital Ambassadors Program will be launched in honor of International Women’s Day to break the biases and negative stereotypes that have promoted gender inequality on the continent and excluded women from fully benefiting from the advancement in technology”.
In alignment with the theme of International women’s Day 2022; “ break the bias”, the digital ambassadors program will be launched with virtual round table discussions in partnership with private sector, government, public sector, civil society and other foundations from Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria.
Phillip Ayazika, Programs Manager at Pollicy stated that, “the program launch will not only mark the five year milestone of Pollicy’s impact across East Africa but also usher its further contributions to causes that are prevalent in all regions of sub saharan Africa, particularly problems associated with limited digital access,literacy and online safety experienced by women in sub-saharan Africa”.
The digital ambassadors program will launch virtually on the 3rd of March, 2022 in Tanzania and Uganda and this will be followed by the Nigerian & South African launch in the third-quarter of the year 2022.