<< Background >>The gender gap in ICT courses, jobs and functions is a well-documented global phenomenon. According to Eurostat, as of 2018, in the EU women account for only one in six ICT students (16.7%) while in the job market they represent only 17.2% (1.4 million) of all employed ICT specialists.In order to a) fight stereotypes within institutions that can enable or hinder the women participation in the ICT sector, b) equip the ICT sector with necessary skills, tools and knowledge to empower woman in ICT and better integrate both sexes in all its functions and level of responsibility, and c) assist all structural, law-making, academic and grass-roots efforts towards the vision of closing the gender gap within the ICT sector, this project will design and implement an interactive and action-based non-formal training program and an innovative project design methodology, aiming at empowering and promoting the equal participation, representation and treatment of women in ICT.The program that will be developed aims to enhance the access and employability of women in the ICT sector while degreasing the recorded dropout rates, by supporting employers (enterprises of the ICT sector), ICT business incubators, municipalities and prefectures as well as individual women wishing to enter or remain in the ICT workforce as employees or entrepreneurs.Through the FEMIN-ICT trainings, the needs of these groups will be successfully addressed as they will learn to: • Manage their own stereotypes and pre-conceptions around gender • Foster a more inclusive working culture • Integrate the dimension of gender in all their recruitment, advancement, development, management, harassment prevention and reimbursement practices• Acquire the necessary skills to empower women who wish to participate actively in the ICT either as employees or entrepreneurs• Develop the skills of current and future Diversity & Inclusion executives and decision makers. Simultaneously, the benefited women by the project will be informed about positive actions and best practices of ICT employers, business incubators and municipalities/prefectures so that they feel empowered and better equipped to make decisions about their professional future. Also, they will have the chance to learn about positive female role models from the wider ICT sector, while the project will facilitate them in liaising with ICT employers, business incubators and municipal supporting facilities that are actively investing in equality and gender diversity within the ICT sector.<< Objectives >>The underlying idea of the project is that by training and supporting the wider ICT business ecosystem to embrace gender equality measures and offer services that respond to women needs, then more women would be able enter/remain/succeed in the ICT sector. Overall, the FEMIN-ICT project strives for fulfilling this idea of gender equality and for genuine women's visibility and empowerment in the ICT sector and digital economy, which will enable in the long-term the achievement of economic growth and wider social progress. The project’s two overarching objectives can be articulated as follows: - Fostering the equal participation, representation, and treatment of women in ICT.- Enhancing their access and employability and decreasing the recorded dropout rates. This will be mainly achieved by providing support and training to the main project target groups:A. Employers (enterprises of the ICT sector)- targeted to senior and middle management executives, legal and HR departments.B. ICT entrepreneurship support ecosystem - targeted to incubators/accelerators management teams, mentors and coaches.C. Municipalities and prefectures- targeted to relevant policy makers and recruitment committees.D. Individual women who want to either enter the ICT sector or are already involved in it.The FEMIN-ICT specific objectives are: ● To explore all relevant practices and initiatives already existing and develop new knowledge and training opportunities that will raise awareness on existing biases and preconceptions that exist and at the same time, on the benefits that when acting upon can bring not only to the ICT sector specifically but to wider economy at large. ● To develop a training programme for the project’s target group and provide them with the resources that would improve not only their knowledge but most importantly their mindset and daily practices towards alleviating gender biases in the ICT business sector.● To provide employers, business incubators and municipalities/prefectures with the methodology that will enable them to design and create effective, sustainable, and impactful childcare and eldercare workplace facilities. For achieving that, FEMIN-ICT offers a unique training and support programme, equipping, on the one hand, ICT Businesses, ICT business ecosystem and public authorities with those skills and tools, to empower women in the ICT sector and integrate the gender dimension in all their practices and, on the other hand, women who are either employed in the ICT sector, or already running ICT businesses, or even unemployed but interested in pursuing an ICT career to initiate or advance their careers in the digital economy.<< Implementation >>FEMINI-ICT has been designed to implement the following main activities during its lifespan:Result 1 (Current state of the art enabling the customization of FEMI-ICT training programme): A1: A1: Collection of data by reviewing the relevant literature, reports, project evaluations, policy documents, existing statistics etc. in the participating countries, but also around Europe; A2: there will be a needs assessment of the project’s participants and in parallel two main methods will be applied in each partner country: i) an online survey, and ii) a series of semi-structured interviews with different participants from all the target groups; A3: Implementation of the online survey and interviews targeted to the different target groups; A4: analysis of data and production of the final report.Result 2 (Training program and support package for gender equality): A1: reflection and consultation activities with the target groups that will lead to the development of the content of the training materials; A2: development of the mother and career-friendly workplace toolkit, based on literature review, international best practices and partners’ expertise; A3: development of a self-assessment toolkit; A4: Implementation of pilot training workshops with the different target groups to test the training material and make the required revisions where necessary; A5: Finetuning of the “Training program and support package for gender equality”.Result 3 (Empowerment Program and tools for Women): A1: development of role models collection, through online research and through partners’ networks for inspiring cases of women being either employees or founders of ICT businesses; A2: interviews with women acting as role models; A3: scaffold of the empowerment programme; A4: content of the 8 different empowerment modules of the empowerment programme; A5: Testing of the empowerment programme through national webinars.Result 4 (FEMIN-ICT policy roadmap): This result will include a set of policy recommendations based on the FEMIN-ICT experiences, achievements as well as on the discussions that will be help during the final conference of the project. Also, this result will entail the creation of policy vignettes at national level and relevant reporting activities.<< Results >>Through project’s concrete results, there will be multiple benefits, as follows:- ICT businesses representing prospective employers will be supported and trained towards fostering a more inclusive working environment.- Business support ecosystems will be trained and better prepared to provide more women friendly services, adopt gender unbiased communication and reach out strategies and support women ICT entrepreneurs more effectively, rebalancing the gender gap.- Municipalities and prefectures will be trained and better prepared to design and implement more women-friendly empowerment initiatives and structures, such as upskilling programs, networking activities, co-working spaces and hubs, community-led ICT projects.- Women will be empowered to pursue careers in ICT and be supported to continue their work and have productive and rewarding careers in parallel to those experienced by their male counterparts.Tangible outcomes:The project will design and implement a training and design methodology program for senior and middle management executives, teachers, mentors, coaches, admissions personnel, recruitment committees, incubators/accelerators management teams, higher education management executives and policy makers that will enable them to create and sustain more equitable, gender diverse and inclusive working and learning environments in the ICT sector. Through its development and implementation, the following results are foreseen:A. A seven-pillar gender equality Training programme.B. A Toolkit for designing mother & career-friendly workplaces in the ICT sector. C. A self-assessment tool for the ICT business and entrepreneurial ecosystem.D. A collection of female role models providing encouragement, inspiration and motivation to other women in the ICT sector.E. An empowerment programme that will be consisted of 8 training modules.F. Five Women in ICT Business & Career Day specially designed and organised for connecting and matching women interested in the ICT sector with businesses, incubators/accelerators and higher education institutions with ICT-related schools and subjects.G. Six empowerment webinars taking place in each partner country and a European one outreaching to more recipients and having a greater multiplier effect.H. A final policy conference where policy stakeholders, academics and business stakeholders will be invited to discuss on the policy actions that could/should be up-taken for the promotion of Gender Equality measures in the ICT sector.