Teenagers taking part in Girl Geek Camp Lebanon July 8-14, 201 (CNN) -- Karine Ramadan is a self-confessed teen geek who often spends five hours a day on the internet.

She would love to work in technology when she is older, but will have to fight against a stark "gender gap" among Lebanon's high-tech community, according to activists.Karine, 16, was the ideal candidate for Girl Geek Camp, currently running for the first time for 16 teenagers in the mountains of Lebanon.The girls learn about social networking, internet security, basic programming, blogging, photography, gaming, mobile technology, video editing, careers in technology, entrepreneurship and much more.
Nadine Moawad, an activist for women's rights and technology who is running the camp, said: "I want to close the gender gap in technology which is very pronounced in Lebanon. Girls are not encouraged to pursue math or engineering, if you meet someone in IT support or an entrepreneur you expect them to be a man.

"We are trying to break these myths and give girls the option to do technology at college or in their careers."

Statistics on opportunities for women in technology in Lebanon are hard to come by, but a 2010 study of Facebook membership carried out by Spot On Public Relations and reported in Online Marketing Trends showed women were more active in Lebanon than other countries of Middle East and North Africa, but behind Europe and the United States.

It found 44% of Lebanon's 930,000 Facebook members were women, compared with 37% across the Middle East and North Africa, and 56% in the United States.

Moawad is part of a women's collective called Nasawiya which runs programs in various fields from politics to writing. It has an ongoing program called Take Back the Tech aimed mainly at women in their 20s.

Girl Geek Camp is an attempt to bring these ideas to a younger generation of 15 to 19-year-olds.

Moawad said: "We realized teenaged girls are using the internet and need to enhance their skills and understanding of social media and technology.

"I've been surprised by the girls' ability to take in so much information so quickly. They are digital natives."
Moawad, 29, found her own interest in technology almost by accident, when she exaggerated her technical knowledge to get a part-time job building websites while at university.

She said: "When I was growing up the internet had just come to Lebanon. I got my first connection when I was 17. I needed a job at university so I lied to get a job and then had to teach myself html overnight."

Girls attending the week-long residential camp were asked to pay as much or little as they could afford, with fundraising among Nasawiya to make up the short fall.

One of the challenges was persuading was girls' parents to allow them to take part, as many were worried about letting their daughters away for a week.

"We had meetings so the families could get to know us and understand the project," said Moawad. "But still a lot of parents didn't allow their girls to come."

That wasn't a problem for Karine, who learned about the camp from an advertisement on Facebook.

She said: "My family knows I'm a geek so they were really keen for me to come. My friends all thought it sounded really cool too.

"I've most enjoyed learning about hacking and programming. We all have good skills, so I can't imagine it will be too hard for us to have careers in technology."

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