Maltese company AcrossLimits has helped to build a consortium of partners from Malta, France and Poland, and secure €50,000 in European funds to finance the Finnish Mimmit koodaa programme, which has now been accepted as an EU supported activity for gender equality.
The Mimmit koodaa programme in Finland has attracted thousands of women to the software industry, and has now been given an additional important role in the newly EU-funded Erasmusplus project ‘Becoming a Woman Coder’ (BWC). In this regard Mimmit koodaa’s role is to put forward the best available practices on how to train women coders – starting at the very foundation, and promoting learning at a very fast rate.
The EU project aims to attract unemployed and less-educated women to start studying coding, and encourages adult education. It aims to promote equality and status of adult women in Finland and elsewhere in Europe. In view of the COVID-19 crisis, the emphasis will be on building a working online platform for the needs of employment authorities, employment trainers and study counsellors.
AcrossLimits founder and managing director Angele Guiliano commented: “Working on Mimmit koodaa in recent months has been inspiring. The activities are economically and socially important for women, not only in Finland, but throughout Europe. We are proud to have brought [the partners] together with similar players in other countries, resulting in a win-win situation for all those concerned.”
AcrossLimits Ltd’s Finnish representative Juha Saarnio added: “We were incredibly happy to get the opportunity to help Mimmit koodaa achieve their financial milestone. There are many more funding and cooperation opportunities available at an EU level than is generally understood in Finland. We specialise in finding the right opportunities and we will help organisations build exactly the project proposal that the EU wants to support.”
Giuliano said it is often the ability to find the right international contacts, opportunities and partners that many organisations lack. This creates a situation where EU funds are often not fully utilised at the end of an EU programming period, as is the case at the turn of the year. Both Giuliano and Saarnio emphasise that the time to apply for EU funding is now. Saarnio added: “You might as well look for all the open EU opportunities holistically, and not just grant funding only, but also European level procurement and direct networking. Many countries lag behind in this, writing off the EU as too difficult to understand, and this is exactly where we can help”
Becoming a Woman Coder project manager Juanita Muscat said “seeing is believing”, and for this reason, one of the first project outputs will be a set of testimonials of women who have succeeded in a coding/development/ICT career. There are many women who started at lower ranks in different companies but built up a rewarding career going up the ladder one step at a time via self-training and doing a lot of sacrifices. “We need these women to talk about their stories and motivate other women to take the leap and develop their skills in coding/development. If you are one of these women, reach out so we can discuss more in detail about how you can make a difference for other women.”
For further information on the BWC project, e-mail Juanita Muscat on juanita@acrosslimits.com.