Impact Stories from Education Diplomacy/Mentoring Policy Area

Mentor leads POWER sessions with U.S. State Department

Fellow(s): Lucie Newcomb

Country:

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

Long-time TechWomen mentor Lucie Newcomb, CEO of NewComm Global Group, collaborated with diplomatic partners to host a series of webinars for Providing Opportunities for Women’s Economic Rise (POWER), an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.
Topics of the webinar series focused on value proposition and product market fit, business planning, funding sources and pitching. Lucie co-designed and co-facilitated these sessions with stakeholders from the U.S. Embassies in Tokyo and Seoul.
POWER was launched in 2019 to leverage diplomatic relationships and resources to promote women’s economic empowerment worldwide. It connects the U.S. private sector with U.S. missions abroad to encourage opportunities, partnership and strategy among women-led enterprises in emerging markets.
Lucie has worked as a Speaker Program Trainer and Curriculum Developer for the U.S. State Department for more than 8 years. She actively attended last month’s SelectUSA Summit hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and has recently been named one of the 150 Great Leaders of 2022 by the Global Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Report Date...: 7/11/2022

Fellow appointed Vice-Chancellor of STEM university in Nigeria

Fellow(s): Francisca Oladipo

Country: Nigeria

Cohort: 2019

Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Professional Growth

In early July, it was announced that fellow Francisca Oladipo (2016) had been confirmed as the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Adewumi University (TAU) in Oko Irese of Kwara State, Nigeria. Francisca has over 20 years of academic leadership and research experience, most recently as Director of Quality Assurance and Head of the Computer Science Department at Federal University Lokoja (FUL), where she also worked as a coordinator of the FUL-RWEYDF Centre for ICT (Information and Computer Technology) for Development and Training, a collaborative effort between FUL and the Rural Women Empowerment and Youth Development Foundation. In addition to these roles, Francisca also serves as Executive Coordinator of VODAN Africa, a collaboration of universities and health facilities across the continent of Africa that provides a “platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19.”
Francisca shares that she “warmly welcome[s] this opportunity to co-create with all the [sic] critical stakeholders to realize the vision of the founders of Thomas Adewumi University through the delivery of accessible, student-centered education in Science, Technology and Medicine.”
Thomas Adewumi University is an accredited, STEM-based institution of higher education with the mission of providing a “world-class academic environment that supports staff and students in conducting cutting-edge teaching and research in the areas of Science, Technology and Medicine …[for] the benefit of humanity.”
Francisca earned a PhD in Computer Science from Nnamdi Azikiwe University and has completed continuing education courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford and University of Essex. She completed her experience as a TechWomen emerging leader with a mentor from Google in 2016.

Report Date...: 7/4/2022

Fellow subject of short film on pioneering satellite build

Fellow(s): Kyzzhibek Batyrkanova

Country: Kyrgyzstan

Cohort: 2019

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

Kyrgyz fellow Kyzzhibek Batyrkanova (2019) recently starred as the lead subject of a 7-minute documentary on the Kyrgyz Space Program produced by the Eastern Standard Times (EST). Kyzzhibek is the 27-year-old director of the Kyrgyz Space Program and leads an all-girls team on a mission to build and launch their country’s first ever satellite. The Kyrgyz Space Program was founded in 2018 to advance science, education and gender equality in the country and Central Asian region. With no national space infrastructure to lean on, Kyzzhibek and her team have started from scratch, first building a lightweight 10cm x 10cm x 10cm educational model of a CubeSat, a miniature satellite which can collect and analyze simple data from space before moving on to draft and flight models. In the short film, Kyzzhibek explains, “Our project [is] not only aiming to launch the satellite, but also to educate girls and women. More than 100 women [have] graduated our course and they [have] started [sic] how to solder, how to create 3d models, how to code, and [how to] work with Arduino microcontrollers and their sensors.” She continues, “after completing our courses, some of the girls wanted to study programming and become software developers and some [went on] to universities with technical majors.”
Despite the simplicity of the satellite model, the project has already lasted four years and is estimated to cost more than 100,000 USD. The Kyrgyz Space Program raises funds in part through a Patreon page. There, they honor important women from international space history with various donation brackets named after the famous figures, including Shiaki Mukai, the first female Asian astronaut, Anousheh Ansari, the first Muslim female astronaut and Anna Lee Fisher, the first mother to journey to space. The history-making satellite has been named after Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy, a 20-year-old Kyrgyz medical student who was murdered by her abductor in a police station while trying to report her own bride kidnapping.
“We really want girls in our country, our region and globally to understand that they are capable of doing anything,” Kyzzhibek declares. “The world is such a big place, and the universe is enormous. No matter what other people tell you, always believe in yourself.”

Report Date...: 7/4/2022

Fellow helps host virtual career fair to promote global hiring

Fellow(s): Hiba Ghannam

Country: Palestinian Territories

Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Professional Growth

Fellow Hiba Ghannam (Palestinian Territories, 2019) took part in producing the first MENA-wide Virtual Career Fair 2022 to be hosted by Washington D.C. based startup Localized, where she works as a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer. Localized hosted over 60 companies from numerous nations and industries, with sponsors and guests including Google, Nestle and U.S. News and World Report. The company’s platform is designed to connect businesses seeking to build diverse, high-achieving teams with a global talent pool. Hiba held virtual sessions for recent STEM-major graduates, advising them on finding “international opportunities and remote work from [their] region.” Hiba is an example of this ethos as a remote employee for the American startup working from her home in the Palestinian Territories. Hiba completed her master’s thesis in software engineering from Birzeit University and is a co-founder of Palestine Tech Meetups.

Report Date...: 7/4/2022

Fellow featured on “Meet the Leader” podcast for World Economic Forum

Fellow(s): Lindiwe Matlali

Country: South Africa

Cohort: 2017

Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Youth Engagement

Lindiwe Matlali, a 2017 fellow from South Africa, was recently featured on “Meet the Leader,” a World Economic Forum (WEF) podcast, following their 2022 annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Lindiwe is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Africa Teen Geeks, one of the largest computer science non-profit organizations in Africa, and a contributing author to WEF on topics including gender, race, equality and social innovation. In the featured episode, “Top Leaders Share What’s Needed After Davos,” Lindiwe focused her message on the responsibility of wealthy and powerful actors to protect the world’s most vulnerable populations. “If your responsibility is to look after others,” she stated, “take it seriously and try and do it right… before you start enriching yourself. Because it’s not about you. When you make poor decisions, it affects the vulnerable the most.”

Lindiwe was featured among other “Voices of Davos” from the WEF annual meeting, including Nela Richardson, Chief Economist of ADP Research Institute; Kristian Teleki, Director of Friends of Ocean Action; and Tolullah Oni, an urban epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge. The stated mission of the WEF 2022 annual meeting was to usher in a “new era of global responsibility and cooperation… against a backdrop of deepening global frictions and fractures.”

Report Date...: 6/20/2022

Fellow speaks on transformational mentoring in aerospace panel

Fellow(s): Madeeha Khan

Country: Pakistan

Cohort: 2022

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

Fellow Madeeha Khan Yousafzai of Pakistan (2022) was honored to speak on the panel “Transformational Mentoring: Inspiring Global Change Makers” at the Womentech Global Conference (WTGC) in June. As founder of House of Passions, a professional coaching and training consultancy, Madeeha brought her extensive expertise in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), IBM Blue Core, scrum framework, and agile and lean methodologies to a discussion on the accelerative value of mentorship in both career and life, with an emphasis on the aerospace industry. Madeeha spoke in the company of four women leaders from the space technology and policy sector to promote the life-changing value of mentorship in advancing entrepreneurship, leadership, diversity and inclusion. Her co-panelists included: Shelli Brunswick, Chief Operating Officer of Space Foundation and a United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Space4Women mentor; Lee Steinke, Chief Operating Officer of CisLunar Industries; Dr. Wumi Alabi, Deputy Technical Director and Head of Space Applications at the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in English (ARCSSTE-E); and Tuana Yazici, an UNOOSA Space4women mentee and space tech policy advocate.
The WTGC 2022 was a hybrid conference hosted across a diverse array of global time zones as a program of the WomenTech Network and the Coding Girls Foundation.

Report Date...: 6/20/2022

Marvell mentors and fellows collaborate to promote TechWomen mentorship

Fellow(s): Cora Wai Sheung Lam, Shailja Garg, Nayanika Diwadkar, Khadija Garamanli and Safa Buzgeia

Country: Libya, Tunisia, United States

Cohort: 2022

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

Mentors and fellows of sponsor Marvell Technology hosted a webinar of nearly 50 attendees to promote the TechWomen (TW) mentorship experience. The event, “TechWomen 2022: Spring Lookback and Autumn Cohort Applications,” was co-organized by various Marvell stakeholders, including mentors Cora Wai Sheung Lam, Shailja Garg and Nayanika Diwadkar. It also featured guest presentations from fellows Khadija Garamanli (Libya, 2022) and Safa Buzgeia (Tunisia, 2022). The event included an opening address, a comprehensive overview of the TechWomen program, an introductory video featuring TW director Katie Zee, remarks from TW Mentorship Initiatives Lead Linda Miles, and detailed first-hand accounts of the experiences of mentor and fellow experiences. The event was launched with opening speaker Kalpendu Pasad, Principal Engineer and Manager at Marvell, who emphasized, “We are at the cusp of a technology revolution [and]… we cannot afford for women to be left out. One-on-one mentoring by the engineering community, at every stage, is essential to ensure that women cultivate a lasting and fulfilling career in technology.”

Report Date...: 6/20/2022

Nigerian fellow wins funding for youth accelerator in Niger; collaborates with TechWomen mentor for technical tools

Fellow(s): Binta Moustapha

Country: Nigeria

Cohort: 2014

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

Nigerian alumna Binta Moustapha, 2014, has recently won a grant from the Bank of Africa Foundation in the amount of ten million West African francs (CFA) for use toward her youth training initiative, Cabinet Hub Zinder. Located in her spouse’s home country, the Republic of Niger, Cabinet Hub Zinder, also called the African Street Business School and Entrepreneurship Hub, was founded to accelerate digital and entrepreneurship skills training for young people aged 18-35 who are not currently involved in critical Education Employment or Training programs (NEETs).
When Binta first relocated to Niger in 2016, she faced adjustment issues when she struggled to communicate in the French lanuage. Binta shares that she was inspired by the biblical quote made popular by Hillary Clinton to “bloom where you are planted,” and began volunteering to teach English as a second language at her local American Corner, a regional resource center provided by the US State Department where people can gather, share and learn about American culture, history, current events and government. Her involvement at the American Corner eventually led Binta to the founding of Cabinet Hub Zinder.
In this program, the 120 youth participants, 60% of whom will be women, will receive stipend funds totalling 42,000 CFA each to compensate their time, transportation and data connection expenses. Participants with Cabinet Hub Zinder will also take part in a financial innovation challenge for fintech solutions internship opportunities in mobile device repairs, graphic design and more. Utilizing her TechWomen network, Binta has also partnered with San Francisco mentor Kathy Giori, who will provide MicroBlocks hardware to support program participants. Cabinet Hub Zinder will be hosted at the American Corner in Zinder, Niger.

Report Date...: 6/13/2022

Fellows host roundtable discussion with Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences

Fellow(s): Kanykei Alipova, Tursunai Bektemirova, Ainura Mitalipova, and Nargiza Abdubalieva

Country: Kyrgyzstan, Palestinian Territories

Cohort: 2014, 2022

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

In early June, 2022 fellow Tursunai Bektemirova, a chairwoman on the Council of Young Scientists in Kyrgyzstan, co-organized a roundtable discussion with the support and participation of fellows Kanykei Alipova 2022, Ainura Mitalipova 2022, and Nargiza Abdubalieva 2014. The event, “Women in Science and Education: Trends and Perspectives”, was hosted by the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic (NAS KR) and served to highlight, elevate, and support the topic of women’s roles and contributions to science and educational development in the region.
Tursunai shares that she conceived of the idea, “after coming back home from the USA TechWomen program [in] 2022. Right away, I had an idea to organize a roundtable for women in STEM.” During the event, Kanykei supported the talk by spotlighting the team’s TechWomen action plan project Kamkor, an online platform devoted to supporting working mothers at each stage of child care, and Ainura joined remotely to present her own related project, Baby Comer. The event, sponsored by the Kumtor Gold Company JSC, was attended by President of the NAS KR, Murat Dzhumatayev, as well as other noteworthy academicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, leaders and humanitarians. Topics of discussion included the socio-economic opportunities of rural young women, quality and levels of education available for women, and socio-psychological portrayals of women in science.

Report Date...: 6/6/2022

Fellow selected as World Bank Youth Summit 2022 Finalist

Fellow(s): Arielle Kitio

Country: Cameroon

Cohort: 2016

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

The World Bank selected 2016 fellow Arielle Kitio as a finalist for its 2022 Youth Summit Competition, representing her organization TechWoman Factory, part of the Cameroon Youth School Tech Incubator (CAYSTI). Arielle was one of six finalists selected from a competitive pool of 1,031 applications representing 107 countries. The 2022 summit theme was “Unlocking the Power of Inclusion for Equitable Growth,” and all finalists were selected for projects that effectively and impactfully spoke to elements of social, environmental and economic inclusion.
TechWoman Factory’s inaugural cohort consists of 179 Cameroonian youth (including 134 women), who receive professional training in one of three fields (data science, web development and digital art) for six months in Yaoundé, followed by a three-month professional mentorship with a partner organization. Additionally, all participants receive a core education in entrepreneurship, financial education, cybersecurity and soft skills such as negotiation, leadership, effective communication and creativity.

Report Date...: 5/31/2022

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