The first session of the training will take place in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 200 young women will be selected from French-speaking countries

The Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA) has opened applications for a fully-funded spectrum management training initiative, targeted at young African women enrolled in their final year of studies.

PRIDA – a joint initiative of the African Union, the European Union and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – says the training programme enables participants to embrace the benefits of digitalisation by addressing various dimensions of broadband demand and supply.

“Increasing demand for services, such as mobile telephones and many others, has required changes in the philosophy of spectrum management. Demand for wireless broadband has soared due to technological innovation, such as 3G and 4G mobile services, and the rapid expansion of wireless internet services,” says PRIDA.

The first session of the training will take place in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where a total of 200 young women will be selected from French-speaking countries in Africa.

PRIDA says the objective is to train young women on spectrum issues, develop awareness and basic competencies in spectrum management and motivate trainees in their studies around spectrum issues.

To be eligible, applicants must be young women aged between 19 and 23, and be enrolled in their final academic year of their first university degree in telecommunication engineering, cybersecurity, IT, computer science, data science or other related fields. They must also have a grade point average of 3.5 and above, and hold a valid passport.

In the current selection process, applicants must be from one of the listed French-speaking countries, namely: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo Brazzaville, Congo Kinshasa, Cote d'Ívoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea (Conakry), Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome, Senegal, Seychelles, Togo, and Tunisia.