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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | In celebration of the International Women’s Day, Airtel Uganda hosted its female staff at an engagement where they were encouraged to embrace the power of technology to attain a work-life balance. The session was held at Kampala Serena Hotel.
The 2023 International World Women’s Day was held under the theme, driving digital innovation & technological advancement with the aim of creating platforms where women can deliberate on how best they can achieve an equitable digital future and the role they play in this movement.
Shakila Nangujja the Manager of Makerere University Business School (MUBS) eLearning Centre and lecturer in the department of business administration, a guest speaker at the engagement revealed that, “Currently, I am pursuing a Ph.D. program at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa and I am required to go there for a couple of weeks and then come back but, in most cases, I study from here and work with my supervisors online.”
“In addition to eLearning, I have automated various aspects of my life by leveraging technology that enables me to perform various tasks using several cloud computing devices on my phone and other gadgets, including use of several tools that help me ease my work as a working mother, a student and sometimes I’m not required to go to work since I can virtually attend meetings using meeting tools like Zoom, Teams, Google meet among others,” Nagujja said.
Agnes Freda N. Lumala, the Academic Registrar of the specialized GoU ICT Skilling Institute in Nakawa urged women to leverage their positive attributes as a junior to grow through the ranks within the organization and for seniors to use their positions to support their juniors to advance via the ladder of success.
She noted, “Technology is changing so many aspects of our lives including the health system, the business aspects, among others hence we can leverage these to enhance our daily lives. Digital skills are the basic tools to find information, evaluate it, and use it within the digital space”
Discussing the opportunities that technology presents and how women can tap into the digital era, some of the panelists mentioned that 2.5 hours are spent every day on one’s phone which gadgets can be used in trying to maintain the work-life balance since it helps to ease their daily activities like parenting through introducing children to (applications) apps that support them with learning like the Jolly Phonics app, Samsung Health for routine health checks, Instagram or Pinterest for a meal plan, Rocket Health for medicine and so many others that can be embedded in one’s daily activities.
The speakers explained the potential of digital tools in growing a savings and investment culture among working women. It is now possible to dedicate a proportion of ones income to Savings or investment without the need to physically go to a financial institution. All this can be done securely on the phone or computer.
Flavia N. Lwanga HR Director at Airtel Uganda said, “The world is fast evolving and we must embrace the movement, when we rolled out 4G we were the first in the country and now we are 5G ready, which aids the access of online education through which we can continue to research and use the information to impact our communities.”
“With the help of technology, I have been able to update myself with the latest fashion trends, and traffic, if I want to manage my time depending on where am going, I check my routes to avoid bad traffic. I courage us all to leverage these tools to learn how to cook new meals or decorate our homes, among others since there are so many things one can do with the aid of technology,” Lwanga concluded.
