 Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the last day of TDAC. Following a very intense, but very inspiring week, we are very happy to be here with you and present ITU's efforts to close the gender digital divide. My name is Sylvia Paul. I'm the head of the Digital Society Division. And today I will be your co-moderator together with my wonderful colleague Carla. Yes, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. I'm very thrilled to be here with you at this last TDAC side event. My name is Carla Lichardello, and I'm the digital inclusion coordinator at the ITU. And we are really looking forward to our wonderful panelists. We have a mix of panelists from a young audience to our experts. So very much looking forward. Thank you, Paul, for joining. We know that it's very early for you and we no further do. Let's hear from our Audrey. She couldn't be with us today, but we have interviewed her. The video is around three minutes or something. So please bear with us if it's a little bit long. But I think that this could give us a good way of setting the scene of our side event. And with that, we can go ahead and play the video. Thank you. Hello, Audrey. I'm E, an intern in the ITU BDT sector. Thank you for being here today. I'm focusing on more for five-set discussion of the network of women. I come from China and now I study and based in Germany. And hello, my name is Glessa. I'm also an ITU BDT intern focusing primarily on girls and ICTs. And I'm Canadian and Swiss and currently based in Geneva, Switzerland. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Audrey Peck. And I'm the founder and executive director of WE-TAC, which is short for Women in Technology. We're a global youth-led nonprofit organization based in the Philippines of the 20 chapters spread out in 10 countries across the world. When I'm not working on WE-TAC, I'm a full-time college here at Stanford University. So I was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Can you give us an example of an event, class, or training that helped you really see the possibilities of pursuing tech education and a tech career? I'd have to say that the one moment that we sparked my interest in tech was when I was in middle school. And in the Philippines, we have this government-mandated computer class, only it actually has very little to do with programming. It's more on how to use Microsoft Office. But I remember one day specifically, my teacher decided to go completely off-curricular and introduced us to this game where a snake had to navigate a maze to get out and was able to, you do that via a box of code. And when you click the button, it would translate to box of code into Java. I was fascinated and I really wanted to learn more. But I was told by my teacher that there were very limited resources and curriculum wasn't offered in my school to teach programming or anything more in that field. But I was able to go online and find free resources in there after she said that I could just look things up. And that's what I did. And I think those moments all like conglomerate that really made me think not just about the technology as a potential career path, but technology for social impact. More young people should be taking agency and making sure the tech is used for good. And why do you think also on gender in STEM fields is very important? It's important to focus on gender in STEM fields specifically and gender diversity to be specific because when we're thinking about optimizing technology to solve world issues, we're going to need as diverse a set of minds working on these issues as possible. What do you think governments, the private sector and international organizations can do to better support girls and young women who are interested in ICTs? What I would have benefited from and what I can envision a lot of young girls benefit from now, it just has their voices being heard and respected and not being underestimated. So I think also on a governmental level, for instance, I think they can be lobbying for these young girls' voices, programs that they want to see implemented within higher structures that perhaps they might not have as high of an influence yet in, represent them and represent their needs in this ever-growing like industry. Okay, great. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your insight. Thank you so much. I'm also very impressed with what you're talking about. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a great opportunity to talk about WePAC and their message. And if anybody would like to get in touch further, I'm Audrey at WePAC.org. So thank you. What a great message from Audrey, really inspiring for all of us and to set the scene for this session to talk about girls and ICTs and STEMs. I am now honored to introduce our director and our gender champion to officially open the side event. Doreen, over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sylvia. Good morning. Good afternoon, good evening. It's a pleasure to welcome you all here to this side event as we come close to wrapping up what's been quite an intensive but very productive week of TDAC. Today at this session, we're going to be discussing our efforts around building a network of women and also to reflect on our broader work to support women and girls in the ICT sector. I think despite some encouraging progress, the digital gender divide remains something that's prevalent in a great number of countries. Sadly, that connectivity divide is most pronounced in the least developed countries where only one in seven women actually has access to the internet. But of course, it's not just an access divide that we're speaking about. It's also a representational divide in the technology sector. Commemorating last month's international day of the girl, the UN secretary general highlighted the importance of bringing girls everywhere into our digital world by actively addressing the obstacles that they face in the digital space. This is our goal. We've been actively mobilizing efforts over the past 10 years to work through the power of partnerships to empower women and girls to become digital change makers. Many of you will recall and I think many of the participants, Sylvia that are with us today, were also with us back at the Plenty Potentiary Conference in 2012 when we amended our famous resolution 70 to include the international girls in ICT day. From that effort in 2015 and actually launching soon after the SDGs were adopted, we built the Equals Global Partnership which aims to help fulfill SDG-5 working closely with UN women, with our partners at ITC, with GSMA, with UN University as our co-leads. And today I'm thrilled that we are 100 partners strong. We've also advanced mentorship and exchange platforms such as our network of women. We're gonna be hearing more about that in our session. It's something I'm really excited about. And of course our recently concluded women in cyber cohort. You'll hear more about these two programs. But we've also been very pleased to co-lead as part of the generation equality effort led by UN women. We've been co-leading together with UNICEF, the Technology and Innovation Action Coalition working closely with the governments of Mexico and the government of France around collective initiatives and investments to support girls digital access, skills and creativity. I think these are great steps forward but of course we need to increase the pace. We need to close the digital gap and we need to get women and girls from all regions involved in the design and in the creation of new technologies so that digital platforms and services meet the needs of all of humanity. We wanna be sure that every young girl, every woman who wants to get her chance to pursue a career in the tech sector, a sector that we believe offers many, many opportunities not just for personal advancement but also for our communities, our societies and of course for our planet's future prosperity. I think we know where we need to step up our efforts but we also know that we can't do this alone. A partnership is going to be key and for those of you that were with us yesterday you will have heard about our partner to connect effort so that partnership piece is absolutely critical. Of course, young people as Carla mentioned in the beginning, young people are a vital part of that partnership and that's why in the spirit of advancing the vision of Generation Connect we will be consulting young women and girls on their experiences and our different programs. This will help us to get a sense of what's working, what's not working so that we can ensure that we're delivering our best value to our partners and to our participants. There's a long road ahead to reach full digital gender equality and we do look forward to continuing to work together with you so that we can ensure that every girl and every woman in every country has the opportunity to leverage and access digital technologies to enhance and improve their lives. With that, I'm gonna hand back to Sylvia to take us through our exciting program back to you Sylvia. Thank you very much Doreen for your very motivating remarks and also setting again the stage for this really interesting side event and we're all very excited to hear more about the programs you have just highlighted. So let's now dive in into our first session which is focusing on girls and ITTs. I do want to remind all speakers we have a very hard stop because of TDAC at 12.55 so please keep within your limits of speaking time. So while girls across the world tend to outperform boys in reading and writing skills, they continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics stem. Through our international girls on ICT day we work with partners to build awareness about the gender digital divide supporting technology education and skills training and encourage more girls and young women to actively pursue careers in STEM. This year, as many of you know we have put together a very interesting program and we have been very pleased to have you all involved actively engaged considering the COVID related challenges. So I would like to now start with one of our first amazing speakers, Ms. Teres Littleton our communications officer said equals and I would like to ask Teres can you please present the 10th anniversary program and what was its impact? Thank you Sylvia. I'd be happy to present this exciting program. As was mentioned previously 10 years ago ITU initiated the Girls in ICT program. This year to celebrate and mark that very important anniversary we came up with a program, a series of virtual events and moments organized by ITU and our partners around the world to launch a new decade for girls in ICT where we'll celebrate all year long not just on one day. Our goal remains the same to build momentum and awareness about the importance of encouraging girls to learn about and pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Well, this year's program we had some significant achievements including more than a million impressions on social media over 5,000 active participation participants, excuse me in our events. 139 million views of the hashtag on TikTok and 230 events around the world in 70 countries. Next slide please. Our events had speakers from all sectors including the private sector, governments, academia, civil society and international organizations. We were very honored by their presence to help us mark this important anniversary. Next slide. And here's a summary of the 10 moments, storytelling, social media, dialogue and conversation, academia, online safety, inspiration, the private sector, the role of media, how communities can support girls and experts inputs. So with these 10 topics, we were able to cover a lot of the complexities of this digital gender divide that persists in STEM. So if you move to the next slide please, I can show you some of the resources that we generated from these programs. We hope to inspire participants with resource kits, links, videos and a whole lot of great content to help them understand. There are many, many, many girls and young women around the world who are with you in this journey toward a career in STEM or even just an interest in STEM. So we were excited to produce some of these resources for those girls. Next slide please. And you can find those resources and much more on our website, ITU.int.go slash 10-moments. Next slide please. And I hope that you'll join us on our next 10 years of girls in ICTs. And with this, I'll turn it back to Carla to introduce our next speaker, to Sylvia to introduce our next speaker. Thank you, Teres. And thank you. What an amazing program, comprehensive. And it was great to celebrate the whole year and we hope to be doing that in the next few years in similar programs. So now I want to introduce a second amazing speaker, Nicole Diamandidis, is our youth advocate for girls in STEM. And I want to ask the question to Nicole. Why is the Girls in ICT program important for you? Thank you, Sylvia. The Girls in ICT program has been so important to me because it supports the cause that is so important to me and that's encouraging girls and women to consider careers in studies and ICTs and STEM technologies. And that's so important because we are the future and without a doubt, technology is gonna be a part of our future. We know that economies have become more digital year after year and this is a trend that's going to stay. So we need programs like Girls in ICT to help encourage girls so that no one gets left behind and that's what's so important to me. And it's also ignited a passion to help me encourage to get girls in my community and through online to get them involved in STEM and really show how important that is. And I've been able to be supported by the ICT and it's allowed me to be encouraged and feel supported to host a conference this past May to help celebrate Girls in ICT and last in May I was able to have a conference in Toronto and Canada where I'm from and I was able to help encourage girls and facilitate conversations with my panelists to help encourage girls to get involved in STEM and really break down the roadblocks of why there is not enough girls in STEM and why there is more boys in this field compared to girls and I was really able to address that and I did that through allowing my panelists to talk about their experiences in the industry and share their suggestions and tips to help girls get involved. And I think that the ICT program for Girls in ICT is really supports like this action-driven approach and I think that's essential to help get girls thinking about these careers and these studies in STEM and that's been so important to me and also I think that it's important because it gives girls like myself a platform to be able to talk about this and really to be able to help other girls get involved and I think that's where it starts. It starts with girls supporting girls and women getting involved and really advocating for this and I think that that's why it's so important. Thank you. Wow, Nicole, I'm really amazed by your words and by your engagement. Please keep up those efforts and mobilizing the younger community and taking up STEM careers. So ladies and gentlemen, Girls in ICT does not end this year with the 10 moments. Girls in ICT is a long-term process. There's still so much to do and we aim to change the mindset of young girls and also of many stakeholders to encourage them to chase a career in tech. So our team has already started to put together the next strategy, the next program with you. So we will be consulting with you very soon to finalize these efforts to celebrate next year's Girls in ICT Day and program. So now I pass the floor to Carla. Thank you, Silvia. The next session is focusing on EQUAS five years later. As you know, EQUAS, as was mentioned by the director, is a global partnership to bridge the gender digital divide. We count on over 100 partners and the partnership is focusing on three main ideas from access to skills and leadership. And with no further ado, we have the pleasure to have the EQUAS chair of the steering committee, Ms. Vanessa, who is also the chief sustainable and inclusive value chains at the International Trade Center. Vanessa, what is the role of the partnership in amplifying the voices of the youth and what is EQUAS? What is its impact? Can you please tell us more? Vanessa, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much, Carla. And good day to you all. It's such a pleasure to be here with you and honestly, so energizing to hear from young people and hear all the exciting things that they've been doing. I think truly we are in good hands. If we look at the caliber of the people that we heard speaking this morning, then the world is in good hands. So just quickly, for those of you who don't know that ITC, we're a joint technical assistance agency with the UN and World Trade Organization dedicated to supporting internationalization of SMEs in developing countries. And a key focus of our work is on women entrepreneurs and making sure that they benefit from trade. We've seen that digitalization has become so crucial in today's world, especially making sure that women entrepreneurs can connect to new markets through E-commerce. And we found, in fact, that the share of women-owned companies in e-commerce is twice that of traditional exporters thanks to the flexibility afforded by this. Mobile technology can also provide girls and women new channels to connect, to connect with families, to gain access to services such as just the past couple of years, e-clinics and medical consultations. And most importantly, can improve girls and women's independence and fundamental rights in society. And women leaders also have the potential to transform local communities and national economies, yet they're still severely underrepresented, especially in the tech sector. And that is why ITU, with United Nations University, UN Women, GSMA and ITC co-created the Equals Global Partnership to close the gender digital divide that was in 2016. The partnership is about working together to ensure that girls and women have equal access to the internet, have the digital skills needed to take advantage of ICTs and champion women leaders in the tech sector. It's also about producing evidence-based research to inform policies and programs to foster gender equality. Since we started in 2016, the Equals Global Partnership has grown from only five co-founded members to more than a hundred active members today. When everyone brings their unique expertise in the table and works together towards a common goal, only then can we succeed. And I'm truly honored to represent Equals Today as its Chair. To my delight, Equals contributed to the Generation Equality Forum, a process convened by UN Women and hosted as Doreen mentioned by the governments of Mexico and France. The 2021 Generation Equality Forum was a major global inflection point for gender equality. And this landmark effort brought together governments, corporations and change makers from around the world to define and announce ambitious investments and policies. UN Women, ITC and ITU pledged a collective commitment on behalf of the Equals Global Partnership to increase the visibility, business and digital skills, mentoring and networking opportunities for 10,000 women leaders and entrepreneurs in the tech sector by 2026. It's our hope that through this commitment, women and girls can access and use ICTs productively because as I said at the start, we know that when women and girls can access the internet and learn the skills to use ICTs, they'll be equipped to start new businesses, to sell their products to new markets and to find better paid jobs. The joint project of EIF and ITU contributes to the Equals Global Partnership, especially specifically aimed to reduce the digital gender gap in three least developed countries. And this is a separate project in the Generation Equality Commitment. The countries that the project works in are Haiti, Burundi and Ethiopia, using technology to drive women's economic opportunities in the textile and apparel industry, as well as the coffee and cocoa value chains. In each selected country, this project is labelling local women to benefit from the new possibilities that come with access to digital technologies. In close cooperation with the Equals Global Partnership, the project works with key public and private stakeholders to address systemic issues that prevent women from accessing and using technologies and being change makers. We want facts and we want young people involved. And therefore, I'm truly excited to have Twana Barak with us, who can tell us about how, thanks to our activities, she's had the opportunity to learn and to apply her skills in her community. Twana was accepted as one of the first Caribbean girls had ambassadors in August 2020. She became an Equals Tech for Girls GSMA alumna, following her participation in the E-Mentorship program. Twana joined the E-Mentorship program to help complete a personal evaluation when she finished her associate degree in business administration. She learned how to use her strengths to boost her self-confidence. She learned leadership and team-building skills too. And after she completed the soft skills E-Mentorship program, she was tasked with motivating youth to join the program. Twana, thank you for taking the time to be with us today. And I'd like to turn to you to tell us, you've been actually involved in some of the Equals activities. Why have the training programs delivered as part of Equals been important? Why are they important to amplify youth voices on a regional level and on a global level? And how have you, Twana, been impacted by them? Over to you, Twana. Thank you so much for having me here. Hello, everyone. That is an excellent question, Vanessa. So the Equals Tech for Girls E-Mentoring program, it really allowed me to participate for one, which was free. The program is able to assist in amplifying youth voices on both the regional and the global level because of its ability to first provide the different programs, whether it be the soft skills mentorship program, or it is learning new skills as it relates to technology and even more. Now, when youth are able to actually access these programs, like the soft skills one I participated in for free and completely online, they're able to meet a mentor that see you objectively and without judgment and will only offer positive criticism, which I believe is so important in advancing an understanding of person. Now as such, training programs that include confidence or teamwork or leadership, they become the focus of those programs because typically in countries like mine, where we aren't able to laser focus or laser have a point of focus for these type of issues or have them worked on in a more censored way. So now we're able to have that assistant with someone who doesn't know you as yet, but they're doing everything in their power to assist you and equals provided that for me especially and I know that they will provide it for girls globally and also locally here. Who have I been impacted? Personally, I have benefited in many ways more than actual words can I can express. I did the program as mentioned before, just soon after completing my degree and I wanted to know where to go from then, what I wanted to do, what I wanted to major in and it was quite, it was quite confusing at first. So I enrolled in the program and I met my wonderful mentor Joanna and immediately she began helping me. She told me about how first I need to realize what my strengths are and how to use it to actually build my confidence, how to use it to help in my work life, which I was struggling with as it released the time management, how to use it in my school life as it also helped me to choose my major, which is actually finance management and marketing. So now I'm actually able to say the program did me so well where I'm able to tell my friends about it, tell the young ladies I mentor on a daily about it and have them join the program in the next launch because I know it can help them out as well. When I completed the program really, I discovered some flaws that I actually pushed aside and ignored and I figured out that nothing is worth ignoring because my mentor taught me that everything is really a strength and I leaned into that and I worked with it and it was a wonderful experience knowing everything is great. I believe that girls globally can actually benefit from the equals programs, especially the mentorship program by simply participating in any part, sorry, by simply participating, utilizing the skills that they learn and aim to be the best that they can using all the skills learned just as I have and I must say it has been really, really good. Now, in the end, whether it is directly or indirectly, I believe in all girls and women globally, we can do it and we will do our best always. Thank you so much. Great, thank you very much. Vanessa, first for your commitment in leading the Equestrian Committee and for the overall support that ITC has given to the partnership and to the different processes as you have highlighted also related to generation equality and also a big thanks to Anna. We can really see the energy and hear the energy from your voice, your commitment and your passion and it is very revealing that despite all the challenges that we have faced lately, young girls are really continuing to learn and investing in career in tech. So we really wish you all the best. We are always ready to support you and with that, Silvia, the floor is back to you. Thank you. Thank you, Karla and Twana. Your words really were so touching. We're ending the week in such a high note with all these amazing speakers, really very, very touched with what you said. So, well, we're now going to the next section and I please also like to remind the speakers we're a bit behind in time and we really have a hard stop with TDAC. So please really keep your comments to your time allocated. But now in the next section as concerned about the needs to provide opportunities for girls and women to be trained, this section will focus on how we're supporting them to take on opportunities on the digital environment across all stakeholder groups. So after having heard from our young professionals and the dreams they have such as Twana, let's dive into other initiatives related to the inclusion of women's in training specifically related to training. So let's start with our ITU colleague, Anna Veneroso, all the way sitting in Brasilia, Brazil, our program coordinator and she will present us the training in women in leadership, an amazing program that she has been developing and meeting. So go ahead, Anna. Thank you, Sylvia. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone. It's a great pleasure to share with you during this TDAC side event, a little bit of our experience with him, the online training course on female leadership in the telecommunication and as a sector which started to be delivered last year in the America's region and because of its great success. We have decided to replicate it, totalizing all three editions fully delivered. Next slide, please. Thank you. So the training initiative that was offered by TDU in the framework of equals and in close collaboration with CETEN represented an opportunity, many for women from the sector to learn both aspects. The technical context of telecommunication and emerging technologies and also knowledge related to leadership skills development, especially by supporting them to identify the main challenge faced by women and their CET career and how to deal with them. So although the training was fully online, participants had the chance to attend several life sessions that were promoted during the training and during which they could share their professional experience and have interactive classes. Thanks to the features of FACTIV Academy platform. In the sense, I would say that our main expectation with this training course which was fully online and delivered in Spanish was that participants could report upon its completion that the content was truly relevant and applicable to their reality. And because of that, and I'm glad to say that we have achieved our goal. It means that the training was highly scored when participants were requested to provide their feedback on the relevance of the content to their professional environment, the relevance of learning about current ICT trends and their overall knowledge acquired during the course. But I can say that this is more than this. Participants feedback, I can show some of them in the slide that feedback shows that this training can change perceptions and break barriers. Participants from 70 countries for Latin America report that they would like to have more technical training opportunities in areas such as AI spectrum management regulation but always including topics related to managerial and leadership skills. Because of this positive result, we are planning a new training course for the next year that is going to include new content from equals and hopefully we can get more people involved and engaged in the network created by former participants. And what I see is that there is a huge opportunity to count on the contribution of the women representing the now for WTDC that is going to be invited surely to share their experience and added value to the training. Last but not least, it's therefore very important to express our gratitude to the support provided by Cité to this activity and also speakers from UN Women BBVA Foundation and SOA showing that we can build a real network of women helping women. Thank you very much, Yuba, over to you. Thank you, Anna. And I can bear witness to this great program and I hope this can be replicated in other regions. So now I would like to introduce Mr. Jim O'Connor, Chairman and CEO of US TTI who has just concluded a three-day training on digital inclusion and women's empowerment and with an amazing speakers and trainers. I was very happy to join. Despite being all of us extremely busy, I was so happy to be there the three days and really enjoyed this amazing sessions. So Jim, can you tell us more about the webinars and what happened? Sylvia, thank you and thank you for participating last week. As you mentioned, from November 1st to 3rd in collaboration with Equals, in power of the US Department of State, NICT-TUD, we conducted a series of webinars addressing the best practices to connect the unconnected and bridge the divides that affect women and girls. During the program, experts from US government, industry and NGOs addressed the factors that contribute to widespread and sustainable internet inclusivity, proven strategies for closing the gender digital divide and new business models and deployment approaches that are being utilized. Over the three days, there was robust participation from the more than 300 attendees in 78 countries. Significant thanks to Carla for her support in launching the event and to Doreen for her ongoing leadership on these issues. As we prepare for 2022, we look forward to building on the success of these sessions with additional webinars focusing on bridging the digital divide and to hopefully convening an in-person leadership seminar that focuses on these issues and brings together tangible actions for all of us to be working on going forward. So we thank you for the partnership, for the continued support, and we look forward to all of our ongoing collaboration as we work to bridge the gender digital divide. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. And well, it's great news what you're saying. And I definitely think that we should continue this effort. As I said, I was there and I was very inspired about what was said and also, as you said, participants from all around the world. So now we have another great pilot we have launched this year, which is the Women in Cyber Program. This was an interesting exercise for us and since with the spirit to mainstream gender in ITU, we have teamed up with our colleagues from the cybersecurity team to develop a targeted mentorship program for women. And we were pleasantly surprised with the success of this pilot. So Jasmine Idrisa Asunsi, cybersecurity program officer of ITU will tell us more about this program. Jasmine. Thank you very much, Sylvia. So yes, indeed we have streamlined gender also within cybersecurity and we first launched the Women in Cyber Mentorship Program on International Women's Day 2021. And it's within an effort to help bridge the gender and workforce gap that is still persistent in the field of cybersecurity. In fact, there is a well documented gap in the field in the workforce. The need for professional remains high. According to IC Square in 2021, the number of unfulfilled cybersecurity positions will be at 3.2 million. And in addition to that, the field is suffering from a significant lack of women experts as they only make up for 24% of the cybersecurity workforce and either fewer of them hold managerial or senior positions in this area. There is still a need to enable women to be trained and supported to take on the opportunities that the cybersecurity sector holds across all stakeholder groups. So the Women in Cyber Mentorship Program aims to do just that. Mentoring, training and showcasing role models through representation is one of the many approaches that we have taken to be part that are part of a holistic solution to counteract the gender gap in cybersecurity. The three program pillars are Inspire, Train and Empower. Inspire through role modeling and inspirational keynotes from women that have had stellar careers in cybersecurity, sharing their tips on how to succeed in such a male dominated field. Train, of course, we've had both technical trainings on emerging topics in cybersecurity and soft skills that are needed for a successful career in cybersecurity such as critical thinking, communication, leadership and of course the Empower pillar that is the mentorship track where junior women professionals have been meticulously matched with mentors who have been there to guide them, advise them and build long lasting relationships. Mentoring and role modeling allowed to shift the very mentality that still hinders women participation in the field by showing that women are valuable additions to the cybersecurity workforce. Indeed, it is often the lack of exposure to role models to guidance and mentorship that deter women from entering and thriving in what is still largely a male dominated field. The goal of our women in cyber mentorship program has been and will continue to be to encourage community building, guidance, training and senior junior solidarity among women in the cybersecurity sector. It enables the creation of a global network of women sharing expertise and guiding each other on the cybersecurity field, discovering the opportunities it still holds and the skill sets needed to navigate it. So I invite you to stay tuned and look out for the call for registrations for the next edition in 2022. We will be looking forward to seeing a whole new cohort of passionate mentors and lively mentees. Thank you very much. Back to you, Sylvia. Thank you, Jasmine, for this, as I said, very successful program and also for all of your efforts because you've done an amazing job and we have now I understand a lot of interest for potential donors and partners to continue this work. So for the final part of this section, we have just launched our management skills from women in tech course. And I would like to give the floor to Lolly Gaitan, our project officer in EQUALS. And so please tell us more about this course. Thank you, Sylvia. So it's actually me who's gonna give some explanations. My name is Lena and I work with the ITU and the EQUALS Global Partnership. So it is a pleasure to be here today and explain a little bit more about the management skills for entrepreneurs in tech, which is an introductory five-week free of access course co-created by the EQUALS Global Partnership, the ITU and the two co-leaders of the EQUALS Leadership Coalition, UN Women and the International Trade Center. And the goal of this course is providing basic project management and other leadership skills needed for daily operations of already established companies by women entrepreneurs in the tech sector. And we are happy to have more than 215 participants representing over 80 countries, so India, Bahamas, Nigeria and so on from all regions of the world. And there are two components. We have the instructor-led course material which is posted on the ITU Academy platform. And then we have live webinars every Friday with our partners. We've had one with UN Women on the gender action plan and the importance of inclusiveness in the workplace and also International Trade Center who gave a webinar on access to finance. And then our instructor, Jasmine, is also helping with webinars. And the course gives an overview of team management, planning and budgeting, making partnerships, negotiations, how to scale up your business, how to access finance, project management basics and so on. So we have seen real positive feedback from the participants that they have been able to learn new skills, that they have been able to create new relationships, have networking, and also have gained confidence to be the true leaders that they are. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lana, for jumping in for Loli which we know is currently in Burundi. So I will now pass the floor to Carla for the next section. Thank you, Sibia. Before moving to the session, we actually wanted to mention that the EQUAS Sinteka Awards 2020-21 will be hosted at the IGF. The ceremony will be happening on December 9th. As you know, we closed the nomination. We are now evaluating the submissions. We have received more than 153 nominations. So a big thanks to all of you and to all your support. So we will have a very long communication plan which will be shared with all of you. And Teres, please, if you can put maybe on the chat. And yeah, with that, we want to now move to the network of women. As you know, at the beginning of last year, we actually launched the network of women for WTDC. And I'm very happy to see, I was checking in the list of the participants that many of our members are actually attending the side event. So a big thanks to all of you for being here. And with that, I'm pleased to pass the floor back to our director who will introduce the network of women and the newly established advisory board. Director, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Carla. And thank you as well, Sylvia. You can sort of hear the excitement up here on this podium from my right and from my left, a very committed team. And it's great, of course, to hear today the exciting updates of these initiatives. And of course a big thanks to our partners. I really appreciated and love the stories that Nicole and Tuana have shared with us. So as Carla mentioned in 2020, we launched the network of women for the ITU development sector. Of course, we were inspired by what was done on the radio communication side. So we took some lessons from the BR team, from my colleague, Hanan, who's in the room. Of course, the aim of this initiative is to improve representation and try to, of course, encourage women to take up leadership roles in the ITUD as committee chairs, as conference chairs, as vice chairs, as working group chairs, study group chairs, you name it. But of course, it's not just the WTDC. It's more than the WTDC. And I think picking up from the comment that Nicole from Canada mentioned, it's about supporting each other. It's a network of supporting each other. We now have our chapters. We have six chapters. We have six regional groups. They launched to no time in organizing numerous activities, from dialogues to information sharing sessions, from mentoring initiatives. And we look forward to much more in the months to come. And of course, as Carla mentioned today, we are announcing and welcoming our first advisory board of the network of women. This advisory board was coordinated with our six regional groups. And I want to thank the team, the board, for stepping up, and of course, to congratulate you on your nomination by your respective regions. As you can see, I hope on the slide, on Zoom. And we do have actually most of our board members, as Carla mentioned, with us. So if I could invite them to turn their cameras on so we can see you. So from Africa, we have our dear Cecilia from Zimbabwe. We have Regina Fleur, who's also our study group one chair from Côte d'Ivoire. From the Americas, we have Elisa from Brazil. We have Dr. Kim from Trinidad and Tobago. From the Arab states, we have Noha from Egypt. We have Zena from Lebanon. From the Asia Pacific, we have Qi Wang from China. We have Lisa from Australia. From the CIS, we have Sahiba from Azerbaijan, who's also a member of the Radio Regulations Board. So it's great to have you with us, Sahiba. We have Natalia from the Russian Federation. Her photo is not on the slide. We're still awaiting her photo. And I don't think she's actually with us today. So Natalia, we look forward to meeting you and seeing you soon. And of course, from Europe, we have Inga from Lithuania. And of course, we have Christiana of Romania. I am very pleased and excited to announce that further to some consultation, Christiana has kindly agreed to be the chair of this first ever advisory board for the network of women. So thank you, thank you, Christiana. And congratulations. I think that this board is going to play a very helpful role in sort of guiding us, providing oversight on the strategic direction of the network. Your advice will help us to further build momentum, of course, to empower women leaders in the ITUD. And I think in the ITU as a whole and hopefully the tech sector as a whole. So without further ado, Karla, can I pass the floor to Christiana, our advisory board chair, if she wishes to share with us a few words. Christiana, please. Thank you so much, Doreen. It's an honor and a pleasure to speak for the first time in the TDAC side event as the chair of this advisory boards. And I'm sure that together we will really help promote more women in leader positions. Well, we will help them become leaders because they have it in them. We will just be here to create the path or make it easier for them to become leaders. And it's a pleasure and an honor to be chairing this advisory boards. I think it's a very nice journey ahead of us and we will make our voices heard for sure together. Thank you. Thank you, Christiana. And I mean, we've seen your work over the past years and we know that under your leadership and of course under the support of the vice chairs and their involvement, we will really make progress in having more women delegates in BDT and actively contributing towards WTDC. So we have come towards the end of the program and I don't know you, but I am so inspired. Our team works really hard on all these matters but by hearing all of these stories, I think all of us, you've given us the energy to continue with this work and to collaborate with all of you to close the gender digital divide. But last but not least, we will have one more person close to close this session and he's also one of our gender champions. So I would like to give the floor to Marco Abiso who's our chief AI of the digital network and society department and my supervisor to share with you some closing remarks. So Marco, go ahead. Thank you, Silvia. Hi everyone. I hope you can hear me well. And well, thanks for the nice kind words, Silvia. But yes, I mean, I think lots of things have been said and of course, I mean, we presented the program initiative that are constituting, you know, the very, very big, let's say, I would say movement that we are trying to generate here in BDT and I think that the key message here really meant to carry short and not spend much more time in talking about it. It's really, really, I mean, a collaborative approach. It's really to go together and do a little bit of a convincing and most importantly, the mindset change that is required to actually shift our way of thinking toward more equality, more inclusion, more diversity and empower all, let's say, communities that needs to be empowered. So in that sense, maybe what my message here is to really engage this, I mean, all the different communities on the ground. So events are good to catalyze and to synergize but I think, I mean, it's our really, I mean, key task to reach out to the communities, to reach out to our workplace colleagues, to reach out to our fellow students, to our social group, to our friends, you know, really to generate this kind of mindset that is happening, but it could happen much more, much more, in a much more faster way. And, you know, I'm not a woman, of course. And I'm not so young as well, but I can tell you, if I can be convinced, which I was from the beginning, I'm sure that everyone can be convinced and we can really generate that kind of leadership and the kind of change in our mind who then, you know, generate an equal impact. So with that, Silvia, I would like to thank you all the speakers and everyone that contributed to this and let's carry on, be engaged, let's carry on putting passion on this because this is really something that can really, really, really be a game changer globally. So thank you for that. Thank you, Marco, for ending in such a positive note. And I would actually like to think I was looking at the chat and the amazing comments, very inspiring, again, I really, we're very grateful for all of your comments because that gives us the energy to continue with the hard work. So with this, we will finish the side event and I hope with this positive energy, we will hopefully transfer it to the last session of TDAC and thank you everybody for joining us. Keep up the good work. We are here also to support you and thank you for joining us today and have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.