ictQATAR, SCFA sign MoU to promote e-literacy among Qatari women

The MoU essentially aims at promoting e-literacy among non-working Qatari women.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber, Secretary General of Supreme Council of Information & Communication Technology said the MoU aims at developing effective ways to implement the "e-citizen project" targeting, among other sections of the society, non-working Qatari women using International Computer Driving License or ICDL curriculum (ICDL is a global computer literacy initiative developed to raise the level of IT knowledge and increase the level of competence in common computer applications for all the citizens of the world).

For the said purpose training centers will also be set up in Qatar that will be run by the SCFA and supervised by ictQATAR and ICDL-GCC Foundation.

Describing the MoU as "reflective of ictQATAR's vision to spread e-literacy", Dr. Hessa added that the e-citizen project will equip the Qatari society with the essential IT skills, enabling women in particular, to independently avail from the existing e-services be it for paying their bills, enrolling themselves in courses, making holiday reservations, shopping, banking, trading, searching for jobs, or simply participating in online discussion forums.

The e-citizen project will be launched in two phases. In the first phase, ICDL training will be provided to 500 unemployed Qatari women followed by similar training for over 500 non-working women who will then obtain the "e-citizen certificate". The second phase on the other hand, will include full deployment of training and testing to obtain the ICDL & e-citizen certificates for other sections of society.

On his part, H.E Mr. Abdullah bin Nasser Al Khalifa, Secretary General, SCFA said that the Council welcomes its partnership with ictQATAR to spread ICT awareness among Qatari women. Further adding that this program will help bridge the current ICT gap between working and non-working women, he informed that SCFA will take responsibility for setting and implementing a policy for identifying qualified categories to join this program and managing their nominations. He also informed that SCFA will put a mechanism to monitor registration, attendance and participation of trainees and provide regular status reports to ictQATAR on participation commitment.

ictQATAR will cooperate with ICDL-GCC Foundation to identify certified private companies in the field of e-literacy which will be assigned to develop training material and automated testing.
Moving forward in this direction, SCFA and ictQATAR have also agreed to develop and launch a joint media awareness campaign to encourage women to participate in this program.