News from Africa
Submitted by Abigail Oppong, Ashesi University ACM-W Student Chapter, Ghana
Edited by Jennifer Goodall, ACM-W Connections Newsletter Editor
Over the years, the ACM-W Community has been very instrumental in having the activities of ACM-W in Africa. Diversity and Inclusion is key to ACM-W as we see some. Currently, there are about 18 ACM chapters from Africa with about five ACM-W student chapters from Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, and Ethiopia. The ACM-W community is working to help build more chapters across the continent.
The chapters have been very active in organizing activities that will help serve members. Webinars were organized to have women working in the industry share their knowledge and experiences. The webinar aims to help the students connect school studies to the outside world. There are many other more webinars to come this year.
Student-Led Community Initiatives
The students have been engaged in impactful community works to help the younger generation have more interest in STEM. The ACM-W chapter from Ashesi University embarked on a community-led initiative by engaging senior high school students on STEM related programs. The program started with an online science show from CERN, which presented different science experiments to help the high school students understand the theory they learn in school. They ended with a career talk in STEM related fields and in computing.
International Sign Language Day
During the celebration of the international Sign Language day, members from Ashesi University joined the sign language club to show the impact of technology in sign language. They educated the community of sign language processing and machine learning.
AfricaCWIC 2022
The 1st Annual ACM Celebration of Women in Computing in Africa: AfricaCWIC 2022 conference is just right the corner. The event will be hosted virtually in Africa. The event includes a Hackathon, Workshops, Posters, Technical Talks and Panel Discussions, and is sure to have something for everyone. Visit the website at https://africacwic.acm.org/2022/ Do you also want to be a proud sponsor of this event, kindly check poster and website for more details.
Finally, the ACM-W community is working hard to get the ACM-W Africa committee established as we believe in diversity and inclusion. The need to help increase the number of ACM-W student chapters and professional chapter is essential.
Anyone interested in joining to make an impact in Africa is welcomed.