Impact Stories

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  Fellow(s): Carolyn Seaman, Lindiwe Matlali

  Country: Nigeria, South Africa

  Region: SSA

  Cohort: 2017

  Project/Action: Fellows partner with Facebook and UNODC to host hackathon

  Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Environmental Sustainability, Professional Growth, Youth Engagement

  2017 fellows Lindiwe Matlali of South Africa and Carolyn Seaman of Nigeria recently collaborated to host Nigeria’s first Hackathon for Justice. Organized in partnership with Facebook and the Education for Justice initiative of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the annual event aims to engage youth in using technology to address challenges to rule of law. Last year’s hackathon, also organized by Lindiwe, was hosted in Silicon Valley at TechWomen partner company Symantec.
  This year, 50 students from 10 universities were selected from among 400 applicants to participate in the hackathon. Within a 24-hour period, 13 teams used problem-based learning to design and create apps, receiving mentorship and coaching from Facebook’s software engineers and representatives of Africa Teen Geeks, Lindiwe’s STEM education non-profit. By the end of the hackathon, the teams developed mobile apps addressing issues such as corruption, human trafficking, violence against children and terrorism.
  “We are excited to be working with UNODC and Facebook to encourage youth to be actively involved in solving issues of rule of law and to amplify the great work of the Education for Justice initiative,” Lindiwe said. A hackathon participant reiterated, “This is not the end; we will keep the same energy and continue providing solutions to the problems of our world.”

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  Report Date: 4/8/2019

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  Fellow(s): Rayan Al Zahab

  Country: Lebanon

  Region: MENA

  Cohort: 2016

  Project/Action: Fellow organizes International Women’s Day event in Dubai

  Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth

  2016 fellow of Lebanon Rayan Al Zahab, a Women Techmakers ambassador and Google Developers Expert, recently partnered with Google to organize an International Women’s Day event in Dubai. The event theme, “#IAmRemarkable,” was borrowed from the initiative of the same name that aims to empower women and underrepresented groups to speak openly about their accomplishments. Organized by Rayan for the second straight year, the event welcomed nearly 200 attendees.
  Princess Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the Dubai royal family presided over the event, announcing with a Google representative an initiative to train and certify 1,000 girls in the MENA region on Google Cloud technologies.

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  Report Date: 4/8/2019