More than 500 young girls from public schools in Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, connected through the Microsoft Teams platform to participate in the 2021 edition of the Microsoft DigiGirlz event.
Through keynotes lectures and participatory workshops, Microsoft DigiGirlz seeks to educate and inspire young women to consider a career in technology. The virtual event taught them about trends and opportunities in the diverse field of technology.
“For Microsoft, gender inclusion is key for our industry because there is still a big professional gender gap. Through DigiGirlz we want to teach, inspire, and increase female participation in the field of technology.”
A screenshot of DigiGirlz coaching in progress. Images courtesy Microsoft.
“When we share this knowledge to girls and teenagers, we are expanding their professional horizon and inspiring a whole new generation of technology specialists”, said Darren Mohammed, country representative for Microsoft Trinidad & Tobago.
Microsoft DigiGirlz Caribe took place on October 29th through the Microsoft Teams video calling platform. The day’s agenda was loaded with a series of conferences that focused on various relevant topics, such as robotics, coding, and programming.
Finally, throughout different workshops, young girls had the opportunity to create their first robot and learn about programming through the game Minecraft.
Microsoft seeks to bridge the gender gap
According to data from the United States Department of Labor, despite the technology industry being one of the fastest growing areas, women held only 26.7% of jobs in that sector. Also, in universities there has been an 80% reduction over the past decade in women seeking technology-related degrees, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF).
