Powerful players in government must ensure women are fairly represented in the ICT sector through strong policy implementation.
This is the belief of Anna Badimo, chairperson and co-founder of LinuxChix Africa, who was speaking to women representatives of government at a LinuxChix-hosted free and open source software (FOSS) workshop, held in Johannesburg recently.
She said Africa needs to enter the information age with as many participants as possible to become a developer of its technology needs.
"With added participation from women in the FOSS movement, Africa can become designers and inventors of the ICT movement and not only consumers."
The workshop aimed to sensitise women in government to the ideals of FOSS and to provide a platform where gender inequalities in the ICT and FOSS sectors could be assessed and transformed, she said.
"The opportunity presented by ICT, and FOSS in particular, requires a conscious and deliberate policy implementation by women in government to ensure the inequalities existing in society today are never perpetuated."
The workshop was held at the Wits University School of Computer Science and was attended by women from the Department of Public Service and Administration, CSIR Meraka Institute, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Correctional Services, Eskom, Gauteng Shared Service Centre and Sangonet.
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