The Minister for Communications, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful on Tuesday, 20th August, 2019 joined sixty award winners of the Girls-in-ICT Programme who paid a visit to the American Towers Corporation (ATC) in Accra, to acquaint themselves with operations within the Communications Sector. The girls were selected from basic schools from nine districts in the Western Region.
ATC, together with other telecom organisations partnered with the Ministry of Communications to give the girls an insight into the ICT world. Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said technology is the future of the world and told the girls not to relent in their efforts to study ICT.
She noted that the introduction of young girls to information Communication and Technology (ICT) in the key to poverty alleviation.
The Honourable Minister said introducing young girls to ICT will change their fortunes and enable them to secure jobs in the digital world.
The Minister assured the girls that their interaction and study tour at the ATC will broaden their horizons from abstract ideas, building of websites and basic coding to open up a whole future of technology in transforming businesses.
She said that the Girls-in-ICT initiative has become institutional and is now a biannual event to give girls across the country a feel of technology in action.
She is confident that introducing girls to ICT early will cushion them in the near future as they take up positions in the digital infrastructure that Ghana is building for development.
Francois van Zyl, Chief Executive Officer of the American Towers Corporation, urged the girls to make their time at ATC a memorable one by asking every question about ICT that they might have on their minds.
He expressed confidence that the knowledge the girls acquire will trickle down to their peers in the communities when they go back to their various schools.
He challenged the students to practise ICT in all areas of their academic work to enable them to apply it fully in their day-to-day activities.
The American Towers Corporation is an international firm which specialises in mounting masts (antennae) for telecommunications networks and other organisations which use transmission.