First Time @ the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

I have been meaning to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference since 2009. In 2012 I had an opportunity to attend and my first impression was "wow" - 3,600 attendees and majority of them being women!

A number of thoughts crossed my mind:

1. So many African women in technology would benefit from this experience 
2. How can we as Africans learn from this in terms of: 
• Event organisation; 
• African GHC 
• Chapter Opportunities for mentorship and sponsorship 

I hope more Afrian women will make it to GHC 2013 October 2 - 5, 2013 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minnesota.

REFLECTIONS

REFLECTIONS DURING THE "Information and Communication Management (ICM) Strategy Development Workshop – Accra, Ghana; 18-22 October 2010"

• The potential for pulling our efforts towards the same goals is a great opportunity not to be missed
• In the ACP region there are still limited skills in Information & Communication Management; ICT
• Information and Communication Management Strategies are lacking in many organisations.
• The MSc AICM offers great opportunities for building the capacity of agricultural professionals to better serve their constituencies in terms of agricultural information and communication management; publishing; agricultural knowledge management; Records and Archives Management; Web Resources Management 
•  CIARD Manifesto: "To make public domain agricultural research information and knowledge truly accessible to all"

In Most Organisations ICT is poorly managed or not managed at all. Is it the fault of the Technical Staff? Is it the fault of us as the customers of the technical people. What can we do as managers, as users, as clients?

1. The management of ICT is not just the role of technical people. All management must be ICT literate and effectively supervise their ICT technical staff. Management must have the confidence to manage technical staff and not handover total responsibility. If there is a virus on the network - the responsible staff must be suspended!!!!!
2. When recruiting your ICT Manager go for someone with a skills mix (Computer Science combined with Social Science, Business or Agriculture as an example). Experience as a hands on person also helps a great deal. ICT Professional Certifications are a must.

 Thank you CTA for bringing us together.