JEDDAH, 19 September 2006 — With an aim of empowering women and enhancing their computer literacy, the College of Business Administration (CBA), in collaboration with the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Microsoft, has launched a program entitled “Women in Technology” (WIT).
The opening ceremony of the program took place on Saturday at the CBA. Representatives from IIE, the US State Department and the college outlined the guidelines of the program.
“This program aims to empower women and enhance their computer literacy,” said Siham Alblaihed, vice dean of CBA. “We are very excited to be at the forefront of such a project,” she added.
Trish Tierney, program director from IIE, and Erin Walsh, senior adviser in the US Department of State, have worked on this project in over 90 developing countries.
The program provides IT training for women and starts with teaching participants the basic concepts in operating computers and information about hardware, software, operating systems and the Internet.
Participants are also given the opportunity of going to an advanced level in graphic and web designing.
CBA students, who will manage the tasks on a daily basis, will run the program.
“Our students will create an institute within an institute and manage it by themselves,” said Alblaihed, adding that the program would be applied in an interactive learning environment as the students will practice marketing for the program and the program will benefit other women in society.
“I have been involved in this program for eight years, yet I have never seen any model so unique,” said Walsh referring to the model that is presented in the CBA. Women from all age groups can enroll with nominal fees.
The WIT program will train 150 unprivileged women in sites across Saudi Arabia. Other centers that will be offering the program are Effat College in Jeddah, and Al-Yamamah College and Prince Sultan University, both in Riyadh.
According to the organizers, the project was initially implemented in Yemen. “The experience was encouraging and it was a model for the application of the program in other countries,” said Walsh.
The program has so far been applied in five countries besides Yemen. They include Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and now Saudi Arabia.
