Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia Ana Brnabić has encouraged early today, at the gathering on celebration of the International Girls in Information and Telecommunication Technologies (ICT), all the girls to realise their ideas and the vision they have in this field.

Ms Brnabić has said to the girls they should not let anyone tell them they can’t do something, pointing out at the same time that the IT sector is the biggest potential of Serbia, which in the first two months this year achieved the growth of 34 per cent.

Don’t be afraid to make a try, a failure is a part of a success, maybe its best part. If you fall, rise and keep going on, PM has said.

Also, she underlined that today we live in the country where women are on managerial positions in the government, and that she is the first women to become the Prime Minister in Serbia.

Ms Brnabić has reminded that in the next three years in the IT infrastructure, Serbian Government will invest more than 65 million euros, saying that in today’s meeting with the representatives of the EIB one of the topics was the modernisation of society and ICT.

PM has announced that in the project of connected schools 79 million euros will be invested, which will ensure that all the schools will be connected to the fast internet.

She has reminded that the information science has been introduced as a mandatory subject starting of the fifth grade of primary schools, that we have a pilot project of E-Register going on, and that starting of September 1 a project on digital course books will begin.

The is traditionally seen as male business, but we will change that together, says she, stating that with joint efforts everything will be done to make Serbia look differently in the next three years.

Prime Minister has underlined that Serbia counts on girls in IT sector, who, as she has added, are the engine of the social development and better future.

State Secretary of the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić has said that celebrating the International Girls in ICT Day tends to draw attention to the necessity of involvement of girls in ICT.

Ms Matić has stated that currently in Serbia there are 17 per cent of women taking managerial positions in the IT sector, and that the situation is not much better even in the EU, where the percentage is 27.

She has stressed that digital technologies are the basics of innovation and progress, and women are pillars of social development, adding that 90 per cent of girls in Serbia in primary schools show interest for working in ICT, and that interest decreases during secondary schools, and that there are actually 15 per cent ending up in this field.

She has said that the data show that 86 per cent of men and 83 per cent of women in Serbia use the Internet on daily basis, and mobile phones almost 89 per cent of men and 87 per cent of women.

According to her words, the percentage of use of technologies is equal, but when it comes to the managerial positions in IT, men are far ahead.

Awards were handed to the winners of the competition in the video presentation “My favourite place in Serbia”.

International Girls in ICT Day was established in 2010, on the initiative of the Republic of Serbia, under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). So far more than 300.000 girls and young women have participated in more than 9.000 celebrations of this day in 166 countries.