State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić has said at the Panel “Women in IT sector”, held within the XBIT project in the Rectorate building of the University of Novi Sad, that the insufficient number of women in ICT today can bring to a small number of women in all innovative fields in the future, which also means the best-paid and most perspective jobs.

“To overcome that gender discrepancy in the ICT sector, Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications is implementing a number of programmes for encouraging girls of school age to get interested in this field and choose to study it and work in it, but also for strengthening the women to join this sector through programmes of re-training and through launching technological start-ups”, stressed Ms Matić.

On the occasion of opening the information technology lab at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, marking the beginning of the activity of the regional XBIT project, State Secretary has said that the Republic of Serbia finds the cross-border cooperation within this project particularly important, since it makes the opportunity for the exchange of various local experience and practices in the field of innovations, in particular in the field of innovative entrepreneurship of women.

The new lab will ensure that students can work with 3D printers, VR technology, and sensors for the Internet of Things as well as the technology of Augmented reality.

XBIT project is funded by the European Union, and implemented by the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications, Citizen Association SEE ICT, Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, OSVIT-cooperative, and Municipality of Mladenovac, within the IPA Cross-border Cooperation Programme of Croatia-Serbia 2014-2020. The project develops two new digital communities, in Novi Sad and Donji Miholjac, with the aim to improve entrepreneurship through the use of modern IT technologies, and to improve the position and engagement of more women in the IT sector.