The Feminist Tech eXchange
The Feminist Tech eXchange took place on the 10 - 12 of November in Cape Town, Monkey Valley. The event brought more than 50 women from different countires in and outside Africa world, to discuss issues around feminism and the use of Information, Communications, and Technology. The politics of feminism and ICT, as well as providing an open space for discussion and training.
FTX seeks to emplify skills of women's rights movement for effective change. By definition, a movement is an organised set of constitutes to pursue a common political agenda through collective action. Through collective initiative, there is a lot of Knowledge and Information in Technology, and in my understanding FTX is the purpose and a perfect example.
After some few discussion before we broke into our tracks, it was to my understanding that ICT is really gendered. We had discussion about what feminism means to us, the use of ICTs in our organisations to achieve the goals we set, and as a movement.
We had activities and training that explored the different uses of ICT, and built a lot of focus on capacity building. The trainings were in different tracks; the Audio, Video, Digital story telling, Wireless connection, and Social Networking. I was in the Digital Story track. It was a very moving experience, participants shared their experiences after watching other digital stories. We had themes built from this discussions. Identity ad diversity in teh women's movement were dominant themes identified, others were around our journeys to feminism and how we as feminist focus most of our energy, time on our work and forget about the self which i believe a lot can Identify with. Like I said, it was really interesting and educating at the same time.
Most worked in pairs and others choose to do their work indivisualy. We finished all the movies by Wednesday, it was a tiring course as the training started as early as 9 in the morning till 6pm. We had a very exciting closing session with final presentations from all the tracks. Beautiful and mind blowing is the word I can proudly attach to what was presented in front of my eyes. All the tracks had completed and had the end products, in a very short period of hard work, discussions and sharing of knowledge through technology.
We explored feminist practices and politics of technology, shared informaition through discussions, and tangible skills through different trainings. As matter of importance, FTX looked at how we approach technology as women's rights activists, understanding where communication rights fit into women's movements, and how can we reclaim technology for women's empowerment. The whole FTX event has achieved the first step, now what is left is for us to put the skills into strategic practice for a sustainable change.
FTX seeks to emplify skills of women's rights movement for effective change. By definition, a movement is an organised set of constitutes to pursue a common political agenda through collective action. Through collective initiative, there is a lot of Knowledge and Information in Technology, and in my understanding FTX is the purpose and a perfect example.
After some few discussion before we broke into our tracks, it was to my understanding that ICT is really gendered. We had discussion about what feminism means to us, the use of ICTs in our organisations to achieve the goals we set, and as a movement.
We had activities and training that explored the different uses of ICT, and built a lot of focus on capacity building. The trainings were in different tracks; the Audio, Video, Digital story telling, Wireless connection, and Social Networking. I was in the Digital Story track. It was a very moving experience, participants shared their experiences after watching other digital stories. We had themes built from this discussions. Identity ad diversity in teh women's movement were dominant themes identified, others were around our journeys to feminism and how we as feminist focus most of our energy, time on our work and forget about the self which i believe a lot can Identify with. Like I said, it was really interesting and educating at the same time.
Most worked in pairs and others choose to do their work indivisualy. We finished all the movies by Wednesday, it was a tiring course as the training started as early as 9 in the morning till 6pm. We had a very exciting closing session with final presentations from all the tracks. Beautiful and mind blowing is the word I can proudly attach to what was presented in front of my eyes. All the tracks had completed and had the end products, in a very short period of hard work, discussions and sharing of knowledge through technology.
We explored feminist practices and politics of technology, shared informaition through discussions, and tangible skills through different trainings. As matter of importance, FTX looked at how we approach technology as women's rights activists, understanding where communication rights fit into women's movements, and how can we reclaim technology for women's empowerment. The whole FTX event has achieved the first step, now what is left is for us to put the skills into strategic practice for a sustainable change.
- Keba.sebetoane's blog
- Login or register to post comments
