One of my best days in 2013 was April 25th – Girls in ICT Day. In my previous blog I talked about my focus on moldable minds and Girls in ICT presented my first opportunity. High school girls from Gashora, LDK, LDNC, Riviera, NuVision, FAWE joined Rwanda Girls in ICT to celebrate the day in what turned out to be a great day.

The girls participated in a career fair, and interacted with a panel of Girls in ICT. Hearing some girls say they were excited and inspired to consider studies in technology – was enough to declare success

The most exciting part of the day was the group challenge. In groups of 6-8 the girls had to 15 minutes to discuss “How can we get rural girls access to and excited about ICT?” After which each group had 3 minutes to present their results answering the following 4 questions:
1) What is your solution and why is it superior?
2) How long would it take to implement?
3) What are the pros and cons?
4) if you had $1 how would you distribute among your solutions?

The top 2 choices by the groups girls were (a) airtime for communication to mobilize resources and (b) training for students through computer labs that were deemed more important than individual laptops (more on this to come). Words like Agaciro – Kwigira were often used – which as you know warm my heart.

Needless to say, I was blown away by the girls especially how they articulated their solutions, the passion and confidence they exuded. This was a day I will never forget as it upped the HOPE in our future and more importantly my drive to mentorship programs in schools so that our youth can have examples to look up to. I’m certain that continued focus on molding young minds will be critical to securing Rwanda’s future….Join me on this quest.