Ericsson Ghana empowers female student engineers

Communications technology and services company Ericsson has marked this year’s International Women’s Day with an event that inspired young female student engineers in the country.

It was also an opportunity to give young women more exposure to the ICT industry and further inspire them to pursue a career in I.T after their studies.

The event held in Accra on March 9, 2015 witnessed top female CEOs in Ghana - Lucy Quist, CEO of Airtel Ghana and Estelle Akofio-Sowah, Country Director for Google Ghana who shared their personal life experiences with the students and how they defied all odds to excel in their respective professions.

Lucy Quist stated that women should learn to compete globally with their skills.

“Today's woman must learn to compete globally with their skills. Skills acquired today would be key in the future,” said Lucy Quist who happens to be the first Ghanaian female CEO of a multinational firm.

Lucy Quist stated that engineering is no straight jacket and that “she is in telecommunications because she understands technology”.

The Airtel Boss urged the engineering students to be invincible and remain focus on their studies.

Estelle Akrofi Sowah catalogued how she started work in Ghana from Labadi Beach Hotel to Busy Internet and now at Google.

She shared her four Ps of advice to the young female engineers. She mentioned them as Prayer, Patience, Protection and Planning.

Estelle Akrofi Sowah encouraged the students to feed themselves with positive information always and learn how to deal with people, think critically and how to find solutions.

The female engineering students who participated in the event were selected from the University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the Ghana Technology University (GTU).

Explaining the rationale behind the chosen theme which was “Diversity in ICT under scrutiny”, Jane Egerton-Idehen, Key Account Manager at Ericsson said “diversity and inclusion is high on the agenda for Ericsson. We are doing this for the women and girls to feel empowered by the stories of great women in society.”

According to Ericsson, one of its priorities is equality for women hence its commitment to change the status quo where women have traditionally been underrepresented in engineering and technology fields.

It has set an aggressive goal of increasing the number of women who work at Ericsson by 2020 to 30%.

Observed worldwide, the International Women’s Day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of the women in the past, present and in the future.