At the last Association of Women in Development Forum (AWID), I was one of a group of feminists that participated in a ‘Feminist Tech Exchange’, and since then I have been even more excited about the opportunity that technology holds for women’s empowerment – women can publish and share their own stories via the vast expanse of social media technologies that exist today, a woman at risk of violence can send an SMS asking for help, women’s rights organisation use Facebook, Twitter and You Tube (just to name a few) to spread their messages of women’s empowerment. Clearly technology is powerful and even more important in today’s world.

Yet so many women especially on the African continent do not have access to technology, even when women have access to technology, the poorly developed communications infrastructure (extremely slow internet and high communication charges for e.g.) means that women are not able to keep up with the rapid rate of technology. Unfortunately, technology has also become another tool for violence…many of the new technologies that aid in message dissemination are also being used for cyber stalking and cyber bullying. This is where ‘Take Back the Tech’ comes in. ‘Take Back the Tech’ advocated taking back control of technology to end violence against women. So I say, tell your stories, document, disseminate and take back control of technology.

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

Communications Officer