State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić has said at the press conference in the MPs Club, presenting the project “Mum is a software developer”, by Centre for mothers, that the interest made by this project, with almost 800 applications for courses of software developing, has reaffirmed once again the needs for additional training and retraining of women in the IT sector.

“According to the research in ICT, in Serbia women take only 18% of participation, while the global average is 26, which is also far away from the desired figure. Motivation for better involvement in the field of new technologies, must start from early age, but also it is necessary to overcome the period of lack of formal education of software developers, through informal education. Especially when we have in mind the lack of staff in our most prosperous industry”, Ms Tatjana Matić has said.

She has reminded that the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications is implementing special incentives within the programme of development of information society, with the aim to increase the participation of women in new technologies, not only when it comes to software development as a primary activity, but also when it comes to additional entrepreneurship activity, or any other job or interest.

In addition to these initiatives, apart from the training and retraining programs for women for raising the competencies in software developing, the State Secretary has mentioned the international event “Girls in ICT Day” initiated by the Republic of Serbia, held this year on April 27.

Project “Mum is a software developer” is an online course on software development in Serbia, supported within the Public Competition for granting funds or programs in the field of development of information society in the Republic of Serbia, in the field of “training and retraining of women for raising the competences in software development”.