Women urged to embrace technology to help them attain work-life balance

Women have been urged to make great use of technology to help them attain a balance between work and life.

The call was made as telecom company , Airtel Uganda hosted its female staff at an engagement incelebration of the International Women’s Day at  t Kampala Serena Hotel.

“Currently, I am pursuing a Ph.D. program at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa and I am required to go there for a couple of weeks and then come back but, in most cases, I study from here and work with my supervisors online. In addition to eLearning, I have automated various aspects of my life by leveraging technology that enables me to perform various tasks using several cloud computing devices on my phone and other gadgets, including use of several tools that help me ease my work as a working mother, a student and sometimes I’m not required to go to work since I can virtually attend meetings using meeting tools like Zoom, Teams, Google meet among others,” Shakira Nangujja the manager of Makerere University Business School (MUBS) eLearning Centre and lecturer in the department of business administration said.

Agnes Freda N. Lumala, the Academic Registrar for the Uganda ICT institute in Nakawa  urged women to leverage their positive attributes as a junior to grow through the ranks within the organization and for seniors to use their positions to support their juniors to advance via the ladder of success.

“Technology is changing so many aspects of our lives including the health system, the business aspects, among others hence we can leverage these to enhance our daily lives. Digital skills are the basic tools to find information, evaluate it, and use it within the digital space,” she said.

Discussing the opportunities that technology presents and how women can tap into the digital era, some of the panelists mentioned that 2.5 hours are spent every day on one’s phone which gadgets can be used in trying to maintain the work-life balance since it helps to ease their daily activities like parenting through introducing children to (applications) apps that support them with learning.

The speakers explained the potential of digital tools in growing a savings and investment culture among working women.
Flavia N. Lwanga HR Director at Airtel Uganda said,

“The world is fast evolving and we must embrace the movement, when we rolled out 4G we were the first in the country and now we are 5G ready, which aids the access of online education through which we can continue to research and use the information to impact our communities,” said Flavia Lwanga, the HR director at Airtel Uganda.

“With the help of technology, I have been able to update myself with the latest fashion trends, and traffic, if I want to manage my time depending on where am going, I check my routes to avoid bad traffic. I courage us all to leverage these tools to learn how to cook new meals or decorate our homes, among others since there are so many things one can do with the aid of technology.”