Impact Stories from Empowering Women and Girls Policy Area

Fellows travel to London for Goldman Sachs Fellowship

Fellow(s): Oluremi Hamid, Lamia Fikrat

Country: Morocco, Nigeria

Cohort: 2016, 2019

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

2016 fellow of Nigeria Oluremi Hamid and 2019 fellow of Morocco Lamia Fikrat were accepted to the annual Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Growth Fellowship, traveling to London last month for training, networking and learning. 10,000 Women has a mission to close the gender gap by investing in women’s education. Their three-month online course, free for women around the world, provides access to training in business, leadership, sales and more. Their annual Fellowship selects a small cohort of course graduates, providing six months of mentorship, training events and networking opportunities. This year, the Fellowship’s culminating event was held in four locations: London, New York, India and China; Lamia and Oluremi were two of four women selected for the London event. Lamia is a strategy and business development consultant as well as a coach for entrepreneurs. Oluremi is the CEO of Hydren Energy, a company that provides solar solutions to small businesses and homes. During the Fellowship, Oluremi learned about the innovation process, expanded her knowledge of successful problem solving and gained valuable lessons in entrepreneurship. “Being vulnerable is a superpower,” she said. “Never be afraid to collaborate with others as it makes you more resilient. Don’t stifle your team of innovation and ideas — allow exchange of ideas.”

Report Date...: 4/4/2022

Mentor(s): Jill Finlayson

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

TechWomen mentor Jill Finlayson facilitated the creation of a database that highlights over 450 notable women throughout the history of the UC system. Jill is the director of Expanding Diversity and Gender Equity in Tech (EDGE in Tech) Initiative at UC, leading their efforts to advocate for women in tech, facilitate mentorship and increase the visibility of women role models. The gallery was created in partnership with Berkeley Computing, Data Science, and Society and Berkeley’s Molecular and Cell Biology Department, and is a part of the 150W Campaign celebrating the 150th anniversary of admitting women to the University of California. In addition to helping create the gallery, Jill was on the committee that planned the 150W celebration. “The celebration was in 2020, but I had students improve the crowdsourced database,” Jill said. “The goal was to capture and highlight the contributions of women faculty, staff, students and alumni across the years. It was also to raise the profiles of often overlooked contributors.”

Report Date...: 4/4/2022

Fellow speaks to club about her petroleum industry career

Fellow(s): Amina Salesse

Country: Algeria

Cohort: 2020-2021

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

2020-2021 fellow Amina Salesse was a featured speaker at the University of Boumerdès in celebration of International Women’s Day, addressing students from the University’s Petroleum Club. Amina is a petroleum engineer as well as an operation support engineer for SPA Smartest Algeria. Amina, who attended the university for both her undergraduate and master’s degrees, spoke about her journey in the oil in gas industry and shared her experience as a woman in a male-dominated field. Amina outlined the diverse skills required for her industry, ranging from engineering to HR experience. “There is no specific career path for a newly graduated engineer,” Amina said. “It depends on each person’s ambition, interest, skills, personality and perspective.” Amina also spoke about her TechWomen experience, encouraging the students to connect with the U.S. Embassy Algiers to learn about exchange programs that can facilitate their professional development and connect them to mentors. “I also shared about the stereotypes that stop women from being part of this industry, that we do have brave women who have chosen to make a career in the oil and gas industry and that they are doing incredibly well,” she said.

Report Date...: 4/4/2022

Mentor(s):

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

TechWomen 2022 came to a close this week at the Farewell Lunch, where 109 women leaders became fellows. Angela Woods and Chris Miner of the U.S. Department of State joined the event, officially welcoming the new fellows as exchange program alumni. The week leading up to the Farewell Lunch included Pitch Day, an #IamRemarkable workshop and a Capstone event. At the final event, the Community Celebration, fellows and mentors came together to celebrate the hard work, impact and connections made over five weeks. There, TechWomen director Katie Zee announced this year’s five seed grant winning teams that will receive a small grant to implement their country team’s action plan project. This year’s winning teams are:

➢ Team Kyrgyzstan and their platform Kamkor, a portal that seeks to support working moms by connecting them to childcare.

➢ Team Lebanon and their initiative, Taqa, a project that provides businesses access to long-term renewable energy solutions amidst the economic crisis exacerbated by the Beirut Blast.

➢ Team Nigeria and their project, The Walk To Water, an impact initiative offering solar-powered water systems to create access to safe water in the Niger Delta.

➢ Team Sierra Leone who will tackle the country’s waste management crisis by connecting plastic waste collectors and waste recycling companies.

➢ Team Zimbabwe and FOCUS (Feed Our Children Using STEM), an initiative that will enable children in orphanages to grow nutritious food using aquaponics.

Report Date...: 3/28/22

Fellow moderates panel with Iraqi female founders

Fellow(s): Shahrazad Shehab

Country: Lebanon

Cohort: 2019

Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth

2019 fellow Shahrazad Shehab moderated a panel on women and entrepreneurship in Iraq, inviting three Iraqi female founders to share lessons and successes from their businesses in celebration of International Women’s Day. The talk was hosted by Takween Accelerator, the first accelerator in Iraq that supports local startups. The accelerator is based at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. Shahrazad, an entrepreneur and Takween Accelerator’s startup accelerator trainer, first became involved when TechWomen mentor Eileen Brewer, then the accelerator’s director, invited her to serve as a mentor for an event. During the panel, the founders introduced their businesses, the problems they are solving and what motivates them as entrepreneurs. They also spoke about key elements that drive an entrepreneurial spirit: creativity, continuous learning and a commitment to help their communities. “I believe that passion is very important when any person wants to start a business,” said Shahrazad. “Being passionate about you’re doing drives success. I believe solving a problem and making the world a better place is what every entrepreneur should think about.”

Report Date...: 3/28/2022

Fellow featured for being an automotive industry trailblazer

Fellow(s): Oduwa Agboneni

Country: Nigeria

Cohort: 2019

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

2019 fellow Oduwa Agboneni was featured in a spotlight from United Bank of Africa, highlighted for her work as an entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and founder of Nenis Auto Care, an auto garage with a mission to empower women and girls in Nigeria. In addition to founding Nenis Auto Care, Oduwa established Nenis E-Learning Hub where she hosts courses on electric vehicles and trains women with essential skills like changing a tire and checking a car battery. Nenis Auto Care also works with the University of Lagos to host its women engineering students for hands-on internships, and, in 2019, Oduwa created Girls Auto Squad, an automotive training program that addresses the skills shortage and gender gap in the Nigerian automotive industry through empowering underserved girls. “There are very few women in this field because of lack of interest due to societal beliefs that it’s a man’s world,” Oduwa said in the feature. “I’ve tried as much as possible to encourage females…there’s a pride that comes with this field. It comes with respect; it comes with dignity…ladies should not be cut off from benefiting from the automotive industry.”

Report Date...: 3/28/22

Mentor(s):

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

Emerging leaders entered week four of TechWomen with new skills and enhanced networks, ready to apply their learnings towards fulfilling their mentorship goals and finalizing their action plan projects. At Action Plan Workshop 3, Emerging Leaders were led by longtime TechWomen mentor Eileen Brewer through a comprehensive pitch training and practice session. There, Eileen explained the six key elements of an impactful pitch – Problem, Solution, Launch, Growth, Sustainability and Team – and in the breakout rooms that followed, Emerging Leaders and Impact Coaches reviewed what they learned and began to develop strategies for a successful pitch. At the end of the session, Eileen reminded the Emerging Leaders to enter Pitch Day feeling confident and empowered: “Don’t pause, don’t apologize, don’t backtrack,” she said. “Take a breath and keep on going when you’ve made a mistake.” At the following week’s Inclusive Leadership Workshop, YSC Consulting facilitators spoke about equity and conscious inclusion in a session where Emerging Leaders were encouraged to share and engage freely in a judgment-free space. At Volunteer Day, Emerging Leaders gave back to the community through volunteering at Bay Area initiatives. Through helping seniors at the Community Technology Network, assembling STEM kits with Resource Area For Teaching, packing donation boxes at Community Impact Lab or planting in a community garden, Emerging Leaders had an opportunity to learn about community needs in the Bay Area and the organizations that are dedicated to creating solutions.

Report Date...: 3/21/2022

TechWomen alumnae support Technovation Turkmenistan

Fellow(s): Maral Hudaybergenova, Radha Basu, Eileen Brewer, Janice Campbell, Erin Keeley, Cora Lam, Zulya Achilova, Zeenat Anjum, Ozoda Ismailova, Sitora Salaeva

Country: Pakistan, Turkmenistan, United States, Uzbekistan

Cohort: 2016, 2018, 2019

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

2018 fellow of Turkmenistan Maral Hudaybergenova recently brought together the TechWomen community to help girls from Technovation Turkmenistan build their confidence, refine their pitches and prepare for Technovation’s global technology competition. Maral, the chapter ambassador for Technovation, launched the first season of the program in Turkmenistan last year. This month she organized a Live Speed Mentoring event, bringing in mentors Radha Basu, Eileen Brewer, Janice Campbell, Erin Keeley and Cora Lam as well as 2019 fellow of Turkmenistan Zulya Achilova, 2019 fellow of Pakistan Zeenat Anjum and fellows of Uzbekistan Ozoda Ismailova (2016) and Sitora Salaeva (2019) to serve as mentors. Together, the fellows, mentors and other supporters met with the Technovation Turkmenistan girls, helping them with their projects that aim to use technology to address leading issues in their communities. 18 teams of girls ages eight to 18 had the opportunity practice pitching their projects to the mentors and gather feedback on their projects and pitch delivery.

Report Date...: 3/21/2022

Fellow speaks about climate crisis at forum

Fellow(s): Davephine Tholley

Country: Sierra Leone

Cohort: 2018

Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Environmental Sustainability, Professional Growth

2018 fellow Davephine Tholley presented at the NGO CSW Forum 66, an event hosted by the civil society branch of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The two-week forum runs parallel to the official CSW session at UN Headquarters, bringing in civil society to engage in the CSW event’s sessions. Davephine is a civil engineer and current Chevening fellow pursuing a master’s in engineering business management at University of Sussex. Her event, Climate Crisis and Education: A woman’s voice included, was hosted by Graduate Women International (GWI) and brought together GWI representatives to speak about the climate crisis in their communities. In her presentation, Davephine spoke about the causes, consequences and possible solutions to the climate crisis in Sierra Leone. She explained that the climate crisis has resulted in extreme weather conditions in Sierra Leone including flooding, soil destabilization and water scarcity. She also shared solutions, outlining the roles that government, communities and corporations can take on in working towards change. “As women, we are most vulnerable when it comes to the consequences of climate change,” she said. “We have to be at the table contributing to these polices and implementing these initiatives.”

Report Date...: 3/21/2022

Mentor(s): N/A

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

After laying the groundwork for both mentorship and action planning in week two, week three of TechWomen was all about diving deeper: Emerging Leaders took action to fulfill their mentorship goals and objectives, worked together to create impactful projects and learned alongside their Professional Interest Groups. Where Action Plan Workshop 1 set the stage for defining an issue and optimizing teamwork and collaboration, week three’s Action Plan 2 moved Emerging Leaders into designing a solution, creating a clear social impact statement and carving a more defined path forward. After sharing out their progress with the wider cohort, Emerging Leaders and Impact Coaches spent the remainder of the session in speed mentoring, where Impact Coaches visited other teams’ breakout rooms for 20-minute feedback sessions. Emerging Leaders also continued to engage in their professional mentorships in week three, working alongside their mentors to fulfill their professional goals. Fatma Telib of Egypt, an entrepreneur who is working with mentors at GoDaddy, has gained exposure to best practices and new networks: “I’ve met with people from all nationalities and cultures, working in harmony. I feel inclusion, and I feel belonging. That’s what I love,” she said. Leonida Soi of Kenya, a computer science teacher, is being mentored by Kathy Giori of ZEDEDA who has shown Leonida how to use MicroBlocks to introduce kids to coding and hardware components. Together, they have begun working with one of MicroBlocks’ program developers to translate it into Swahili.

Report Date...: 3/14/2022

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