UNESCO wants to bridge the gender gap in the digital space

Only 17% of biographies published on Wikipedia are about women.

UNESCO aims to increase the visibility of women in the digital space by organizing a global call for contribution, the “Edit-a-thon”, on International Women’s Day, 8 March.

The objective is clear: everywhere in the world, people will be invited to create, edit or translate new Wikipedia pages of portraits of women who have played a key role or who still contribute today in the fields of education, science, culture, and communication.

Approximately 130 volunteers, among them students, journalists, retirees, representatives of civil society, and diplomats, will participate to the event from 1:30 pm to 6:00 pm at UNESCO Headquarters. They will receive training provided by the Wikipedia team. A guideline will also be available online(link is external).

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, will open the ceremony. The event is co-organised in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, with the support of Canada, Iceland, Sweden, the European Union, the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) and the Chanel Foundation.

Gender Equality, one of UNESCO’s priorities, will be promoted through a series of events organized on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

The problem was also in Armenia. As a result of surveys conducted by Internet Society in 2012 and 2013, it turned out that men are more likely to use the Internet in Armenia. According to gender, Internet access ratio has the following picture: women – 43.5%, men – 56.5%.

Meanwhile, according to the World Bank, According to a survey published in March  2017, this breakdown has diminished. Armenia is among the countries where the number of women and men using Internet is approximately equal to 53% and 56.6%, respectively.

Armenia is also included in the Digital In 2016 and 2016 Digital Yearbook, which presents data from 232 countries on the digital, social and mobile use of the world published by We Are Social.

According to the report, 70% of the 3.02 million people in Armenia (2.13 million) are active internet users. 29% of the population (890,000 people) is an active user of social media. The number of active social network users in mobile devices is 680 thousand. 23% of the population, and 3.66 million mobile users (the number represents mobile subscriptions, not the users). As for social network users, according to information security expert Samvel Martirosyan, the number of users of Facebook and Odnoklassniki is nearly equal – 1 million 100 thousand and 1 million 200 thousand. Women and men Facebook users are equal, there is gender equality. In Russian social network Armenian men are 10% more.