How was the new meeting of the GAP club

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but also an essential basis for achieving peace, prosperity and sustainable development. In recent years, Uzbekistan has paid special attention to ensuring access to education for girls and women.

In order to support womenʼs entrepreneurship and women's education in 2022, the Ministry of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in partnership with IT Park, launched the GAP IT club for women. The club aims to attract women to the field of information technology, support, improve their IT literacy and provide them with training and employment opportunities in the field of IT.

Three meetings have already been held within the framework of the club, where expert girls spoke about their successes in the field of IT and inspired the invited guests with their example.

The new event took place on April 8th. In order to expand the geography of activities, the event was moved to the Jizzakh region – the meeting was held at Sambhram University in the city of Jizzakh.

In the official part of the meeting, Adviser to the Minister of Digital Technologies Kamola Sobirova and Nargiza Salieva, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation of Jizzakh Sambhram University, delivered a welcoming speech.

The program included speeches by several speakers. Deputy Director of IT Park Uzbekistan for the Development of Education Makhliyo Muksinova delivered a speech. She told the guests about existing and future projects to increase the digital literacy of women, as well as about the many opportunities and prospects in the IT field.

“Today there are many successful women in our society.  Among them, there are those who broke the stereotype that “IT is not for women” and manage large business projects.  Based on this, I can say that you should never wait for a convenient moment to get an education, implement a project, work on yourself. Demanding on yourself and constant training will definitely pay off”.

This was followed by a speech by blogger, activist and human rights activist Akida Mohirova (Akida Khanum). Akida spoked about strengthening the role of women in the political, economic and social life of societies.

“Women are the main driving force that develops society.  It is necessary to create opportunities for them to receive education as much as possible.  Because it is these women who will bring up the next generation that will rule the country.  How smart and successful they are, of course, depends on the state of the women educators, from their intellectual competence to their mental state. That is why continuing education is a requirement today”.

Thanks to the presentation of the next speaker, Magmastore Director Malika Zukhriddinova, the participants of the event learned how to create large IT projects, manage a team and develop their own companies.

The unofficial part of the program included several interactive activities and an ideaton, a competition of projects and ideas. As part of this part, the participants united in teams and worked on solving urgent problems.  According to the results of the voting, the winner was the team “Valkyrie angels”, who proposed a solution to the problem of overcoming the fear of young people before school and entrance exams.

Several participants of the meeting shared their impressions.

Dilrabo Mamatjonova, 2nd year student of Sambhram University:

“We formed a team of girls called the Valkyrie Angels. We want to participate with our team in the Uzbekistan Esports Championship tournament, which is planned to be held in the near future. We believe that the implementation of the GAP project in Jizzakh will inspire us even more and will contribute to the creation of new projects and the search for our place in society in the future”.

Ogiloy Musaeva, 2nd year master of the Jizzakh Polytechnic University (37 years old):

“After getting my bachelor's degree, I worked as a teacher for 11 years. We were pleased that the digitalization process has developed throughout the country. Without further ado, I applied to the magistracy remotely and was accepted to study on the basis of a state grant. Today, I was proud to hear speakers speak about the fact that it is never too late to get an education, and especially about the importance of womenʼs education for the development of the whole society. As educators, we tried to find a solution to the problem on the ideaton. All participants were pleased to participate in the event”.

Note that the GAP club is primarily a community for women and young girls.  Here they can share victories and failures, ask for advice and help each other. This is an atmosphere of growth, support and movement towards a dream.

In the future, it is planned to transform the club into a communication platform for women, where participants can exchange views, establish networking and find like-minded people for mutual cooperation.