At least one lecturer believes that mentorship is the key to increasing the participation of women and girls in the digital world and the ICT sector.

According to Dr Phillipa Bennett, a lecturer in the Department of Computing at The University of the West Indies, Mona, many students do not know where to readily find information to guide them on how they might explore the tech industry.

“Our students don’t know about access,” Bennett told The Gleaner at FLOW Jamaica’s inaugural Girls in ICT Conference and Exposition held last Thursday.

She noted that traditionally, studying and working in tech was viewed as ‘too difficult’ or ‘complicated’.

The lecturer stated that in her interactions with students, some would voice that it was simply “just too hard”.

 “But if you speak to them one-on-one, and you talk to them about what they are interested in and getting context of what we can do, then a light bulb goes on and they’re, like, ‘Wow, you mean this thing that I want to do, it’s in here (ICT sector) when it looks like all this robotics’,” she said.

Dr. Bennett was speaking at the Girls in ICT Conference and Expo at the AC Marriott Hotel in St Andrew celebrated on Thursday, April 27, 2023 under the theme ‘Digital Skills for Life.'

Photo caption: Dr Phillipa Bennett, lecturer at The University of the West Indies, Mona, shows off a drone that she built during the Girls in ICT Conference and Expo at the AC Marriott Hotel in St Andrew on Thursday, April 27.

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