A GENDER advocate is pushing for more women representation in the information and communications technology industry (ICT) as this will help better address concerns of women.
Foundation of Media Alternatives executive director Liza Garcia said that even in the internet industrial age, women are still underrepresented.
“It is quite sad that even in some events and discussion ‘manels’ or those men who dominate in the panels still continue to somehow misrepresent women. That’s why it is quite important that in forums like these, topics on gender and women must always be advocated even on the ICT industry,” Garcia said in an interview on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 during the Internet Governance Symposium at The Royal Mandaya Hotel, Davao City.
Based from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report on ICT Facts and Figures in 2016, there is still a large gender divide in the digital industry. Global internet user gender gap has grown to 12.2 percent in 2016 from from 11 percent in 2013.
Developing nations such as Africa have a larger access gap at 23 percent compared to developed nations like the Unites States at 2 percent.
In 2016, only one in seven people is expected to be online from least developing countries (LDCs), of which, only 31 percent of them would be women.
“Let’s take the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board as an example. In the ICANN board of 15 voting members only 4 of which are women,” Garcia said.
ICANN is a nonprofit corporation responsible for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions in the US.
“That’s why we continue to educate women in their potential in leading organization especially in the ICT industry also to represent their concerns, and even more to represent equality among genders,” Garcia said.