Impact Stories from Empowering Women and Girls Policy Area
Fellow(s): Beatrice Sonfack
Country: Cameroon
Cohort: 2016
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Youth Engagement
Beatrice Sonfack, 2016 fellow of Cameroon, has launched an association to empower and inspire young girls to engage in engineering and technology. Women in Engineering and Technology (WENTECH) targets girls from 13 to 18 years old through interactive workshops. After returning from the TechWomen program, Beatrice met with Cameroon’s Minister of Employment and Vocational Training, who has provided space for WENTECH to hosts its workshops. In March, Beatrice organized the first workshop for 17 girls with three trainers. In the most recent workshop sponsored by Orange Cameroon, June 19-20, 45 girls participated with four trainers, including Arielle Kitio, 2016 fellow of Cameroon. The workshops introduced girls to robotics and mobile application development.
Read More »Report Date...: 6/26/2017
Fellow(s): Aretha Mare, Maha Ech-Chefaa, Sarah Abdallah
Country: Lebanon, Morocco, Zimbabwe
Cohort: 2013, 2016
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls
Aretha Mare, 2013 fellow of Zimbabwe, and 2016 fellows Maha Ech-Chefaa of Morocco and Sarah Abdallah of Lebanon participated on virtual panels hosted by Heart of All Women and Women Network earlier this month. The panel discussions were moderated by Cultural Mentor Ruby Yeh, founder of Heart of All Women. In the panel series, “Women’s Global Healing and Empowerment Fest,” which was organized by region, fellows shared personal stories about their experience and challenges of being women in STEM.
Read More »Report Date...: 6/19/2017
Fellow(s): Joy Makumbe
Country: Zimbabwe
Cohort: 2015
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Environmental Sustainability
Joy Makumbe, 2015 fellow of Zimbabwe, discusses her startup challenges and the impact of TechWomen on her personal and professional life in an interview featured on She Leads Africa. SunPower hosted Joy for her mentorship, where she “realized that there was so much untapped potential in Zimbabwe for solar power on the domestic, industrial and agricultural fields,” Joy stated.
Read More »Report Date...: 6/12/2017
Fellow(s): Keremet Djolboshbekova; Nakylai Taiirova
Country: Kyrgyzstan
Cohort: 2015, 2016
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls
Kyrgyzstani fellows, Keremet Djoldoshbekova of 2015 and Nakylai Taiirova of 2016, co-designed a weeklong program with Alif Khalfan, VP of Product Management & Revenue at Disney Consumer Products & Interactive, to teach approximately 70 students the basics of computer science (CS) and expose them to career opportunities.
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Report Date...: 6/5/2017
Taungana Africa
Fellow(s): Sandra Tererai; Nomso Kana
Country: South Africa, Zimbabwe
Cohort: 2013
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Youth Engagement
Taunganafrica has reached more than 900 students in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe since it launched in 2014 with the support of a TechWomen seed grant. 2013 Fellows, Sandra Tererai of Zimbabwe and Nomso Kana of South Africa, have organized annual weeklong STEM expos for rural high school girls.
Read More »Report Date...: 6/5/2017
Fellow(s): Aretha Mare, Amel Ghouila, Mona Karam, Claire Murekatete, Enatha Mukantwari, Baratang Miya, Ruth Kaveke, Danielle Akini
Country: Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia, Zimbabwe
Cohort: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls
Leading up to the Transform Africa Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, TechWomen fellows and 2017 Emerging Leaders participated in a meetup for African initiatives promoting digital skills for girls on May 9. The meetup was part of the broader initiative #eskills4girls, which was launched by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, in collaboration with SAP Africa Code Week and UNESCO YouthMobile.
Report Date...: 5/8/2017
Women in Data Science Conference
Fellow(s): Ouafa Benterki
Country: Algeria
Cohort: 2012
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
Ouafa Benterki, 2012 fellow of Algeria, presented on challenges in natural language processing at the Women in Data Science Conference on April 29 at the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene. As president of the Machine Translation Association – Algiers and Ambassador of Stanford Women in Data Science to Algeria, Ouafa helped organize the one-day conference to feature women involved in data science all over the world and to encourage women to be involved in the field.
Report Date...: 5/1/2017
Fellow(s): Chioma Ezedi, Mercy Sosanya
Country: Nigeria
Cohort: 2015, 2016
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls
Nigerian fellows Chioma Ezedi, 2016, and Mercy Sosanya, 2015, hosted the Techstart Hackathon on April 29 in Bauchi, Nigeria. In partnership with Mozilla Clubs and ‘Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, the TechWomen fellows hosted the hackathon with the goal to get more women into coding. The day before the hackathon, university students new to programming learned how to code with HTML and Javascript. Five teams – each with at least one female – participated in the hackathon, and Mercy also presented on the importance of STEM solutions to solve community challenges, as well as the need for women in STEM fields.
Report Date...: 5/1/2017
Fellow(s): Tarirayi Mukabeta
Country: Zimbabwe
Cohort: 2016
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls
In partnership with Higherlife Foundation, Bindura University and the Zimbabwe ministries of education, Tarirayi Mukabeta, 2016 fellow of Zimbabwe, led computer training sessions for 40 primary school teachers in Hwange. “We started from scratch, learning what a mouse is –how to click, double click, right click, drag and played with it on Paint,” Tari said. “I’m happy that they are discovering how they can apply ICT skills in their work using technologies available to them.”
Report Date...: 4/24/2017
Fellow(s): Rayan al Zahab
Country: Lebanon
Cohort: 2016
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
Rayan Al Zahab, 2016 fellow of Lebanon, was invited by Google to lead the women’s program of the Google Developer Roadshow in Saudi Arabia. Google Developer Roadshows are interactive conferences, providing the latest updates on Google technologies and open platforms for developers and industry leaders. On April 22, Rayan was the only female speaker and presented throughout the day to 50 women on Agile methodologies, user experience, big data and machine learning, and open-source concepts, among other topics. “It was the first event to be hosted at WadiMakkah (an incubator) that had a parallel women’s track,” Rayan explained.
Report Date...: 4/24/2017
