Fa'atuatua Christian College School student, Breeze Chang, is the winner of the Office of the Regulator's Girls in Information Communication and Technology Day (I.C.T.) 2019 main competition.

Every year, since the Office of the Regulator's first successful programme, they hold a main competition in which college girls are invited to participate. 

And this year, the organising committee hosted two main I.C.T. activities which the girls chose from. These included creating an online mobile application using MIT App Inventor or creating a short animated presentation/explainer video using a cloud-based software.

Ms. Chang said this was not only about winning the prize, but also to be a leader in the field and to others.

"Being able to win this, is an empowerment for us girls because in this field it is male dominant," said the 16-year-old.

She chose to create a short animated presentation video to enter the competition, which only took her a day to complete, saying this is her way of spreading awareness to other girls in the country.

"Nowadays its technology generation and you hear a lot of things about the kids, especially teenagers who’ve got all social media, Facebook, twitter and all of that. 

"And you hear a lot of incidents about girls who meet guys on Facebook and pregnancy or something to do with a guy they met on social media and to me, I think it’s sad hearing about it and it’s unfair to them who do not know about some of these adverse effects and so this helps to give advice and awareness for other girls and to help them look at consequences of their actions on internet."

The activity was done over the course of four weeks at the O.O.T.R. office at Mulinu'u with the first two weeks delegated to introductory sessions and the last two weeks given to the participants to create their final product, which is based on the theme - safer internet.

The winner of the competition was announced during the event on Thursday held at TATTE where Ms. Chang was presented with a brand new HP laptop, SSAB $300 voucher and a $700 scholarship money.

She credited her grandparents Ekueta and Lei Chang for the support and said the event was enjoyable and fun.

"I am looking into doing something in technology, computing and in this event it’s an empowerment for women and girls and today’s generation in technology and the awareness has been great because there’s a lot of things with just guys, it’s always guys, but now that girls can do it too. 

"Getting girls to stand up and be aware of the problems and to help the future as well for other kids because we all have siblings and we should be there for them as well, because not all parents know how to use technology," she said.

The organising committee received 10 applications for the competition for the activity from Fa'atuatua Christian College, ALeipata College and Aana 2 College.

O.O.T.R. also awarded consolation prizes for the other participants to express their appreciation for the active participation during the competition.