Impact Stories from Empowering Women and Girls Policy Area
Technovation Training Seminar
Fellow(s): Darya Alontseva
Country: Kazakhstan
Cohort: 2015
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Youth Engagement
Darya Alontseva, 2015 fellow of Kazakhstan, helped to facilitate a two-day training seminar for Technovation teams and mentors at D. Serikbayev East Kazakhstan State Technical University. The event was supported by U.S. Embassy Astana and funded by an alumni scholarship project “Support girls into STEM careers”.
More than 50 people participated in the initiative, which culminated in a pitch presentation to prepare girls to participate in the final stage of the Technovation competition. Six participating teams presented their projects and seven experts evaluated the presentations and provided feedback.
Read More »Report Date...: 3/5/2018
Vodafone Egypt Event
Fellow(s): Mona Karamallah and Raghd Magdy
Country: Egypt
Cohort: 2014, 2015
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
Two fellows of Egypt, Mona Karamallah (2014) and Raghd Magdy (2015), organized a networking event in collaboration with their company Vodafone Egypt for the TechWomen delegation to Egypt. Alexandre Froment-Curtil, CEO of Vodafone Egypt, delivered the opening remarks, highlighting the company’s strong female representation in their leadership team and their goal to achieve an equal number of female and male employees across the company.
Two TechWomen mentors and two female executives from Vodafone delivered TED-style talks about resilience, and both Mona, Site Infrastructure Civil Technical Lead, and Raghd, Core Network Strategy Senior Technical Lead, spoke to the audience about the impact of TechWomen. The remainder of the event involved mentors and fellows leading roundtable discussions on topics including business agility, the internet of things, digital transformation, security trends, the power of networking and developing a personal brand.
Read More »
Report Date...: 3/5/2018
Tech Girls Advocacy Program
Fellow(s): Carolyn Seaman
Country: Nigeria
Cohort: 2017
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Youth Engagement
Carolyn Seaman, 2017 fellow of Nigeria and Founder of Girls Voices, recently brought together 100 girls for the organization’s Tech Girls Advocacy Program, a program that trains girls to use photography, computer coding, digital art, creative writing and filmmaking to champion advocacy for girls’ rights. The training resulted in the creation of a website, an app, comic strips, a short film, a research document and many photographs.
Carolyn is passionate about training young girls in tech skills because she believes that STEM has no gender and that for the world to optimize its potential, the brain power of girls cannot be neglected.
Read More »Report Date...: 2/26/2018
Cartier Women's Initiative Awards
Fellow(s): Hanan Khader
Country: Jordan
Cohort: 2013
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth, Youth Engagement
Hanan Khader, 2013 fellow of Jordan, was named a finalist in the 2018 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards. Designed to support women entrepreneurs, the awards were established in 2006 by Cartier, the INSEAD business school and McKinsey & Company. Hanan was selected because of her work on Hello World Kids, an online learning platform she launched to teach computer programming to children and adolescents across the Middle East.
Hanan was inspired to create the program after she saw the insufficient computer skills training being offered to her children at school. Understanding the need for the next generation to be adequately equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in the modern workforce, Hanan chose to dedicate her time to teaching children how to code and create technology. So far, the program has reached 40,000 chlldren. According to Hanan, “you never know, maybe one child that we reach out to can create the greatest idea and change the world for the better.”
Read More »Report Date...: 2/19/2018
Alumni Outreach Grant
Fellow(s): Sevara Siradjeva, Tanzilya Yakshimbetova and Shodiyabegim Bakhtiyorzoda
Country: Uzbekistan
Cohort: 2016
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
Three 2016 fellows of Uzbekistan, Sevara Siradjeva, Tanzilya Yakshimbetova and Shodiyabegim Bakhtiyorzoda, received an Alumni Outreach Grant from the U.S. Department of State for their recent project focused on empowering women in STEM.
The three fellows created custom calendars highlighting women from Uzbekistan in STEM fields with the objectives of raising awareness and providing role models for young women, supporting youth in STEM and building a network of STEM specialists. They have distributed the calendars to universities, NGOs, corporations and governmental bodies. Severa, Tanzilya and Shodiyabegim also created do.IT.women, a program concentrated on community STEM projects. As part of a larger initiative, do.IT.women organizes monthly panel discussions with the women featured in the calendar.
Read More »Report Date...: 2/19/2018
Fellow of Kazakhstan Featured in Forbes
Fellow(s): Anara Molkenova, Dina Shaikhislam, and Diana Tsoy
Country: Kazakhstan
Cohort: 2015, 2017
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth, Youth Engagement
Anara Molkenova, 2017 fellow of Kazakhstan, was featured in a Forbes Kazakhstan article this month highlighting young research scientists in the country. Anara holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, and her research focuses on the development of energy storage systems.
Additionally, Anara and Dina Shaikhislam, also a 2017 fellow of Kazakhstan, have both volunteered as mentors for the
Technovation Kazakhstan 2018 program. Technovation is the world’s largest tech entrepreneurship competition for young women, offering girls around the globe the opportunity to learn the skills they need to emerge as tech leaders. The Kazakhstan chapter of Technovation was started by Diana Tsoy, a 2015 fellow of Kazakhstan, and has since grown to include hundreds of middle and high school-aged girls.
Report Date...: 2/12/2018
Mentor(s): Zanoon Nissar, Paria Rajai and Pamela O’Leary
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
Mentors Zanoon Nissar, Paria Rajai and Pamela O’Leary and TechWomen Lead Jillian Scott participated as panelists and moderators in the inaugural Women of MENA in Tech conference. The conference was organized by Persian Women in Tech and hosted by Oath.
Zanoon, founder of Women4Good, and Jillian spoke on a panel about community builders empowering women, which was moderated Paria, former director of marketing at Hackbright Academy. Pamela, a diversity and inclusion expert, shared insight about how organizations can transform workforce cultures.
The mission of the conference was to bring together powerful catalysts of change to intentionally create a new paradigm centered around equity, inclusion and diversity.
Read More »Report Date...: 2/12/2018
Fellow of Cameroon Recognized as Impact Leader
Fellow(s): Sophie Ngassa
Country: Cameroon
Cohort: 2014
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Youth Engagement
Sophie Ngassa, 2014 fellow of Cameroon, was awarded the Impact Leader badge by World Pulse for her campaign to empower girls in STEM. Sophie has been teaching in a technical college for 13 years and was awarded a Grace Hopper Scholarship in 2016. She also created the Center for Youth Education and Economic Development, where she runs mentorship and digital literacy workshops for girls. Additionally, Sophie received a 2017 African Dream Achievers Award for her efforts promoting STEM and ICT training among young women.
World Pulse is a social network connecting more than 50,000 people from 190 countries focusing on social impact and digital technology for women.
Read More »Report Date...: 2/5/2018
TEDx Talk
Fellow(s): Lindiwe Matlali
Country: South Africa
Cohort: 2017
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls
Lindiwe Matlali, 2017 fellow of South Africa, gave a TEDx Talk titled “Knitting is Coding,” which has been published online on the TEDx platform. In her talk, Lindiwe explains how her Knit 2 Code program in South Africa connects knitting to computer science, revealing how grandmothers can teach a new generation the skills of the future.
Lindiwe is the Founder and CEO of Africa Teen Geeks, a non-profit organization that teaches school children and unemployed youth how to code.
Read More »Report Date...: 2/5/2018
Fellow Interviewed as Rising Star in STEM
Fellow(s): Nomso Faith Kana
Country: South Africa
Cohort: 2013
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
2013 fellow of South Africa, Nomso Faith Kana, was interviewed by Levers in Heels, a digital platform featuring rising African women in STEM. The piece highlights Nomso’s training as a nuclear scientist and role as founder and managing director of Sun ‘n Shield Technologies, a group that provides solutions for smart cities, most recently by producing locally-made fiber optic cables to improve internet connectivity.
In the interview, Nomso talks about her mission to inspire young women in her capacity as co-founder of Taungana STEM, an initiative to empower rural African high school girls to access and explore futures in STEM fields.
Read More »Report Date...: 1/29/2018
