Anusha Rehman Gets GEM-Tech Global Achievers Award 2015
Anusha Rehman Gets GEM-Tech Global Achievers Award 2015
Anusha Rehman, Minister for State for Telecom and IT, has been awarded with GEM-Tech Global Achievers Award in recognition of her exceptional efforts to boost women’s empowerment through ICTs.
She was given the award at a ceremony held on the sidelines of World Summit on the Information Society in New York today.
Hosted by United Nations Agencies UN Women and ITU, the annual Gender Equality and Mainstreaming in Technology (GEM-TECH) Awards recognize that technology is a uniquely powerful means for transforming the lives of women and helping redress the global gender gap.
Jointly organized by UN agencies ITU and UN Women, the awards recognize the tremendous power of ICTs to transform women’s lives by providing them with better access to education, information, support networks, employment opportunities, avenues for political participation, and devices and apps that can improve personal safety.
Anusha Rehman is given the award for initiating a number of projects and programmes that have had a profound impact on the ICT sector in Pakistan – in particular, she has enhanced the role of women in the sector and enabled women in general to benefit from ICT.
The initiatives include a special program for disadvantaged girls, which gives girls access to learning computer science and economic opportunities, and a startup incubator program, which offers mentorship, commercial, legal and financial help for young people and young women in particular.
Anusha has also undertaken several other policy and legislative initiatives with direct relevance to furthering women’s empowerment.
GEM Global Achievers awards are celebrated this year as part of the 20-year commemoration of the Beijing Platform for Action.
The 2015 GEM-TECH awards attracted nearly 150 nominations from government, the private sector, academia and civil society from 55 countries.