SheSkills takes yet another step to empower women in Pakistan. It has introduced digital skills boot camps. Now that sounds a pretty great idea. The women all around the world have their contribution in tech industry but only 14% of the women are providing their services in tech field.
As per the stats the 48% of population of Pakistan are women. That makes about 196 million women. To the surprise less than 25% women are working. To a much greater surprise only 14% are associated with the field of technology.
Nowadays many online classes and courses have sprung up. One of the problems that rise is the lack in setting up a class room environment. SheSkills has been designed by the combine efforts of Ladies Learning Code, Women Tech makers and WECREATE Pakistan.
A digital evangelist and community mobilizer Saad Hamid, who is also the one who proposed the concept of SheSkills, said during an interview,
“The concept of SheSkills came during a recent storytelling workshop which we conducted exclusively for women. At the end of it, we were overwhelmed with requests from girls who wanted to learn skills like coding, digital marketing, and design.”
He added,
“What we’re trying to do is teach them basic digital skills first and up skill later. The aim is to help them build businesses, either by developing their own products, or working on behalf of clients. One of the things we wanted to do is help teach women how to put together a decent website within a couple of days without extensive coding experience. That’ll help them get freelancing contracts or start their own products,”
This step aims to attract maximum women towards tech industry. The program aims to provide physical and online classes for 6 weeks. The classes will be about the web designing and development. In the second phase the course aims to teach women to use editing software like Canva and Photoshop.
Women can join the bootcamp with only US$20 per week or US$120 overall.
The program advisors include President of P@SHA and NEST I/O Jehan Ara, CEO Invest2Innovate Kalsoom Lakhani, Interaction Designer at Google Saba Zaidi, Digital Rights Foundation Founder Nighat Dad, and Code for Pakistan Founder Sheba Najmi, Founder Salma Jaffri Media, Founder Shift Balance Aurelie Salvaire and Founder GetReadyU Tracey Vickery.
The other minute details are provided on the website of the SheSkills.
Source: Express Tribune