Tongan Women in ICT

Scenario

Tongan Women in ICT was established with the aim of improving participation of women and girls in ICT and as a hub providing a voice in this male-dominated area.

“We want to get more females in the group, encouraging women to take up technology. I’ve noticed that girls go overseas to study ICT and come back with degrees, only to become administrators and secretaries and not making good use of their qualification.” This is despite the Ministry of Education actively encouraging girls to study STEM subjects at school.

The initiative

With online safety a major concern in Tonga, the group considered that one of the best ways it could help was to increase awareness. TWICT member says “We couldn’t really do much technically as we have Tonga CERT doing that, so we asked them if they needed us to support awareness, for example in villages and schools. One of our biggest issues in Tonga is the misuse of social media, with misinformation, abuse, bullying, fraud and fake pages.”

Tongan Women in ICT has around ten active members, of whom only two or three have an interest in cybersecurity. When asked what they need in order to be effective, they invariably request more training to equip them with the knowledge and skills to carry out more awareness activity than they do currently. The group has stated that it would like to support any future Pacific-based programmes designed to encourage girls into careers in the cybersecurity field. However, its connection with Get Safe Online does enable it to seek available ways to receive training from experts.

With the CERT having only three members, resources are limited, so Tongan Women in ICT members deliver online safety awareness training on its behalf, equipped with CERT-supplied tools and scripts enabling them to present and answer any questions that may be asked. Feedback is requested via attendee surveys, with data supplied to the CERT for analysis.

They conduct awareness sessions in schools and villages and also provide information via social media. This complements CERT’s own activity which includes TV slots and email bulletin distribution.

Awareness raising activity has gone more online because of the pandemic, even though COVID-19 did not actually reach the country until after the volcano and ensuing tsunami in mid-January. “Cyber has changed, everything is more online, but not everyone is online. There’s always more to be done.”