Today, I made the acquaintance of a group of remarkable women from Latvia, Oman, Morocco and Beligum/Spain, who are dedicated to improving the lives of their fellow citizens, granting access to information, education and civic life through education on IT systems.  Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program has gathered these women here in Deauville, France to talk about their mission to decrease the digital divide in their communities, and in the process, use IT training to advance women’s ability to increase to learn, grow, participate, earn and thrive in their communities. 

Salwa from Oman is a of the Women in Technology program, which is a joint project funded by the U.S. Department of State, Institute of International Education and Microsoft and which touches many nations of the Middle East and North Africa.  This project has already changed the lives of 4500 women and aims to touch more than 10,000 before 2010.  At the session, we were introduced to Abeer, a graduate of the program who is now majoring in Fisheries Economics at University and demonstrates how the program gave her access to further education, access to government (which in Oman is now all online) and the prospects of a better future. 

Mara Jacobsone of LIKAT in Latvia demonstrated how her industriousness, passion for IT and training individuals in IT and partnerships with Microsoft, government and other public/private foundations has enabled her to train more that 20,000 Latvian people (primarily those above the age of 35 who are not served by the modern school programs on IT) on the basic use of computers.  Mara has over 400 teachers trained in Latvia and sends mobile classrooms around the country to further the mission of her NGO. 

Lize de Ciercq, originally from Belgium and now based in Spain, takes the coordination of It programs for underserved Spanish and European citizens to a new level with her organization, Fundacion Esplai.  This foundation has now placed computer centers in over 60 NGOs in Spain and has also united hundreds of similar NGOs around Europe.  Lize and her colleagues plan to form an organization that will provide voice and a united lobbying front for this cause in Europe and around the world.   

Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program (headed up by people like Sylvie Laffarge and Thaima Samman of Microsoft EMEA) supports these NGOs efforts in many ways – by providing training, supplies, support and funding.  In listening to the stories of these women and their organizations, I realized – something so simple as educating a person to use a personal computer can take society so far.  When we talk about solving the world’s problems, educating 31-year olds (not to mention 91-year olds) on the use of technology may at first seem a bit trivial.  However, when we think about how far technology can take us in the 21^st Century – to communication, better forms of education, job qualifications, leisure activities and much, much more – it seems almost criminal not to have prioritized this activity in the first place.  I have one comment- you go girls!  And way to go Microsoft for supporting this kind of program.