Cisco Networking Academies Help Support Women in Technology, Business, Society and Life
December 30, 2005
By Jason Deign, News@Cisco
Sisters are doin' IT for themselves thanks to the Cisco® Networking Academy® program. The program's efforts to increase female awareness of career and education opportunities in IT are providing a boost for women's ability to transform society, particularly in communities where a woman's career options may be limited.
As proof, consider this: five years ago, who would have imagined a Miss Universe contestant with a qualification in networking? A women-only IT college in Saudi Arabia? Women gaining technology skills to help accelerate the economy of an entire country?
All these things, and more, are a reality now thanks to a Gender Initiative kicked off in April 2000 by Cisco Systems and the Cisco Learning Institute which sought to increase women's access to IT training and career opportunities, mainly through the Cisco Networking Academy program.
This has led to two targeted gender projects. In the US, where women comprise 50 percent of the workforce but hold only 20 percent of the jobs in IT, the Gender Equal Access in Technology aims to improve women's participation in courses held in 11 high schools across eight states.
And elsewhere the Internet Training Center Initiative focuses on the establishment of gender-focused Networking Academies in the world's least developed countries, where institutions have to commit to a minimum of 30 percent female enrollment in order to join the program.
These projects have helped foster a general culture of gender inclusiveness across all Networking Academy activities, with outstanding results in supporting women in technology, business, society... and life.
If not typical, Atetegeb Tesfaye Worku's story provides a good example of the heights that women are scaling with the help of the Networking Academy program.
The youngest of five siblings from a family in the small Ethiopian town of Nazareth, 100 kilometers southeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, Worku developed an interest in computers at school which led her to study networking at one of the country's Networking Academies.
She then went on to work as the manager of an IT company, volunteer for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and then take on a career as a model, which to date has seen her being crowned Miss Universe Ethiopia 2005 and representing her country in the Miss Universe 2005 contest.
She is not the only beauty queen with Academy-based IT skills under her belt. Sandrine Agbokpe, named Miss Togo in 2001, is currently a student on the networking course being run by an all-women Academy at the Université de Lomé, in the Togolese capital.
All-women Academies such as Lomé's are now a feature of the program in many countries and perhaps no where more notably than in Saudi Arabia, a nation where the public life of men and women is separated by cultural and traditional rules.
An all-women Networking Academy that opened in Effat College, Jeddah, in September 2005 is supported at the highest level, by the Saudi royal family.
The Academy offers two types of courses: an inexpensive six-month program which leads to CCNA® certification, and a two-year diploma in networking which covers areas as diverse as digital circuits and English language for special purposes.
Catering to approximately 15 students per class, courses were already over-subscribed on opening. It is hoped that the skills the women acquire won't be learned in vain.
Even though Saudi women are only allowed to work alongside men in hospitals, Cisco is working with UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, to help ensure Academy graduates will become employed in female-only sections of schools, banks and so on.
Women are also being encouraged to acquire IT skills elsewhere in the Middle East. In Jordan, for example, 40 percent of all Networking Academy students are female and UNIFEM holds regular recruitment fairs to help graduates find jobs.
The initiative, backed by Cisco and UNIFEM, could help accelerate Jordan's economy. Although 48 percent of Jordan's population is female, only 11.9 percent of the women are economically active.
Female illiteracy rates have dropped considerably in the past few decades, but most students still gravitate toward studies in the arts and humanities rather than computer and engineering related fields.
Jordanian women face both personal and social challenges to entering the technology workforce. Most women indicate family responsibilities and socio-cultural norms as being the primary barriers to entry. Age-old traditions and stereotypes are also to blame for their state of mind.
Now, however, "The Middle East is undergoing a major shift in the field of gender equality and the Cisco Networking Academy program is an important catalyst in the process," says Hashem Shahwan, area academy manager for Saudi Arabia.
Cisco is also working with UNIFEM in Morocco, where a Networking Academy program has succeeded in ensuring that no less than 44 percent of its 650-student intake is female.
Nevine El Kadi, area Academy manager for North Africa and Levant, says: "Our work with UNIFEM underscores the importance of public-private partnership arrangements in helping the Networking Academy program become a success in many countries.
"Right now there are almost 100 public-private Networking Academy program initiatives across Europe and emerging markets such as Africa and Latin America. Our relationship with UNIFEM is especially fruitful, as women in countries such as Jordan and Morocco are finding out."
Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.
