Impact Stories from Empowering Women and Girls Policy Area

Fellow shares inspirational journey on BBC Sounds Podcast

Fellow(s): Baratang Miya (South Africa, 2015)

Country: South Africa

Cohort: 2015

Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Development, Youth Engagement

Fellow shares inspirational journey on BBC Sounds Podcast

Fellow Baratang Miya (South Africa, 2015) was recently featured as a guest on BBC Sounds Podcast “Women leading the tech revolution in Africa” episode, where she discussed her journey into tech, the power of teaching women and girls how to code and the sociocultural, infrastructural and policy changes needed to make that possible. “Walking into a board room with men [who] judge you and tone you down,” she confided,” really made me cry at some points… [and] I feel like it’s what keeps women behind. I used to be very emotional about that. I’m not anymore.” When asked how she overcame this struggle, Baratang explained that “the mindset and the policy issues are not going to change unless I become the most powerful and strong woman [and] can withstand the rocks that come my way. …And once I started taking it as it comes and telling myself, I’m going to sit in the boardroom and say, ‘we have to talk about women and girls,’ then I started hearing my voice getting stronger and seeing the change. It became a passion for me. Change is what I do.” Baratang is the founder of Girlhype Coders Academy, which has taught more than 1,000,000 women and girls how to code. She is also the founder of Women Tech Policy Hub (WTPH), which trains leading women in STEM in policy entrepreneurship through fellowship and executive education. Founded in 2022, the fellows of the WTPH include a vast number of women from the TechWomen community, including at least fourteen fellows from Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. Baratang was also named among the 50 People Who Made the Internet a Better Place in 2016 and regularly serves as a technology writer, judge, speaker and advisor in tech competitions and hackathons.

Report Date...: 3/20/2023

Mentor speaks at Tradewinds Conference in Bangkok

Fellow(s): Mentor Jeannice Fairrer Samani

Country:

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

Mentor speaks at Tradewinds Conference in Bangkok

Mentor Jeannice Fairrer Samani, CEO of digital transformation firm Fairrer Samani Group, recently spoke on a panel at the TradeWinds ASEAN conference in Bangkok, Thailand, where she shared her insights on trade and how governments can support women’s economic empowerment. Jeannice was joined on the panel by Under Secretary of Commerce Marisa Lago, as well as the CEO of MULA-X and the Country Manager for Pfizer. Organized by the U.S. Commercial Service, Trade Winds brings together U.S. commercial diplomats from over 20 countries in Asia for meetings, panels, networking and other engaging programming for the largest U.S. government-led trade mission and business development forum of its kind.

Report Date...: 3/30/2023

Fellow initiative named in Young Global Changemakers Top 50

Fellow(s): Rim Assaad (Lebanon, 2018)

Country: Lebanon

Cohort: 2018

Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Empowering Women and Girls, Environmental Sustainability, Professional Development

Fellow initiative named in Young Global Changemakers Top 50

Rim Assaad (Lebanon, 2018) has recently been named one of the Top 50 semifinalists for the Young Global Changemakers Recoupling Awards 2023, which recognizes young enterprisers from all over the world who institute tangible, youth-led initiatives contributing towards community economic prosperity by environmentally sustainable means. She is recognized as executive director of RISE2030, a community-led initiative managed by Sustain The World NGO in Lebanon, of which Rim is president and co-founder, and SEFY international NGO in the US, on which Rim serves as a board member. RISE2030 focuses on empowering women and youth through capacity building education and employment and has recently been recognized for launching the first all-women solar team in Lebanon to lead a complete installation project. RISE2030 has led the training of more than 1,250 female technicians and engineers who installed solar photovoltaic systems for multiple facilities such as wastewater treatment plant, waste recycling facilitiy, waste sorting and material recovery facility, solar tree in a public park, women cooperatives and MSMEs.

Report Date...: 3/13/2023

Fellow speaks at ICRC panel

Fellow(s): Salome Gathoni (Kenya, 2018)

Country: Kenya

Cohort: 2018

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

Fellow speaks at ICRC panel

Fellow Salome Gathoni (Kenya, 2018) recently spoke on an ICT career panel in Geneva, Switzerland for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Women in Tech (WiT) initiative. As the ICT Coordinator for the ICRC field operations in Somalia, Salome addressed “how technology drives humanitarian footprints and operations for the benefit of remote communities, despite the challenges that come in armed conflict contexts,” she explained in a recent post. The ICRC event, attended by global internal and external ICT leaders, technology experts and executives, was centered on strategizing the use of digital advancements on the execution of humanitarian operations and aid initiatives that benefit individuals impacted by armed conflict. Salome joined the ICRC in June of 2021 at the launch of the WiT initiative. She has been actively involved as a Program Co-Leader, where she plans activities, coordinate events and invites guest speakers to mentor and inspire the women in ICT. “I appreciate my TechWomen experience,” she shares, “for not only exposing me to many career insights, but also enlightening me on many ways to drive impactful community programs leveraging the power of partners & networks.”

Report Date...: 3/13/2023

Mentors collaborate for women entrepreneurs

Fellow(s): Mentor Rekha Pai

Country:

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

Mentors collaborate for women entrepreneurs.

On Feb 8, mentor Rekha Pai led a pre-summit workshop for the ECA’s Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) in 11 countries in East Asia and the Pacific, with the support of seven other TechWomen mentors — Julia Lovin, Jill Finlayson, Shachi Patel, Sandra Chen, Mohna Dhomse, Sarasija Parthasarthy and Meg Gordon. Together these mentors facilitated two breakout sessions designed to help attendees clarify target markets and customer segments, and craft unique value proposition statements and competitive positioning. Participants expressed deep appreciation for how these activities helped them develop key decisions about their business models. The event and workshop were supported by the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and included participants from Brunei, Fiji, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam. Rekha is the founder of a non-profit women’s accelerator, Launch-HER, which gives women entrepreneurs from emerging markets access to free curriculum, resources, community and funding networks made of impact investors and impact VC funds.

Report Date...: 2/20/2023

Fellow invited to join WEF Network of Global Future Councils

Fellow(s): Lindiwe Matlali (2017)

Country: South Africa

Cohort: 2017

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

Fellow invited to join WEF Network of Global Future Councils

Fellow Lindiwe Matlali (South Africa, 2017), founder of Africa Teen Geeks (ATG), has recently accepted an opportunity to join the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Network of Global Future Councils, a multistakeholder insight network that mobilizes experts from various fields and regions to generate deep understanding of frontier topics, such as AI and sustainable development, and explore their effects on other global, regional and industry-specific challenges. Lindiwe will serve on the Global Future Council on the Future of Cyber Security for the 2023-2024 term. Lindiwe has been involved with the WEF since 2020, when she won the Social Innovator Award from the Schwab Foundation. Following that, Lindiwe became a contributing writer, speaker and partner with the WEF. Most recently, at this January’s WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Lindiwe made notable appearances at the stakeholder dialogue “Inspiring Innovation: How to Create the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs” and the press conference “Trailblazing Entrepreneurs Attacking the World’s Biggest Problems.” Present on both panels was John Dutton, Head of UpLink, an innovation division of the WEF, which has recently partnered with Lindiwe’s ATG to launch an innovation and networking accelerator designed to bring African youths into the WEF ecosystem. “Talent alone is not enough,” Lindiwe posited at the press conference. “Most of us are here because we had talent and social capital. We were in front of people who saw [our] talent and were able to support [us].” Her contributions to the event garnered a mention in the WEF’s Outcomes from the 2023 Annual Meeting report (p. 22).

Report Date...: 2/13/2023

FINOMENA co-organizes WomenInCtrl hackathon

Fellow(s): Nadiah Sabaneh (2015)

Country: Palestinian Territories

Cohort: 2015

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

FINOMENA co-organizes WomenInCtrl hackathon

FINOMENA (Female Innovators & Investors of MENA), an initiative founded and led by fellow Nadiah Sabaneh (Palestinian Territories, 2015) recently co-organized the allwomen hackathon “WomenInCtrl” which took place during Global Entrepreneurship Week at Intersect Innovation Hub in Ramallah. The hackathon was an opportunity for ambitious and techsavvy women to create effective tech-driven solutions and to cultivate powerful partnerships between female entrepreneurs and investors, with the goal of moving towards a more inclusive and sustainable innovation-based economy. The WomenInCtrl Hackathon featured a wide range of workshops and mentorship opportunities, covering business development, marketing, technology and economics. Participants also had the opportunity to pitch their

Report Date...: 1/16/2023

Fellows team up on women’s panel for Arab EmTech

Fellow(s): Fellows team up on women’s panel for Arab EmTech

Country: Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan

Cohort: 2022

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

Fellows Diala Al Samarani (Lebanon, 2022), Roshaan Sheikh (Pakistan, 2022) and Rahma Tizzane (Morocco, 2022) recently collaborated with fellow Eman Herawy (Egypt) as panelists to support her “Towards More Women in Tech” event during the Arab EmTech & Startup at Arab Blockchain Week in November. Eman is a leading blockchain developer in Egypt and the founder of Arabs in Blockchain, which seeks to empower the Arab blockchain community through the transfer of knowledge, elimination of language barriers and global and local community connection in Blockchain. She also co-founded NoonDAO which is an Arab women-led decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) advocating for Arab women’s empowerment.

Report Date...: 1/9/2023

Fellow-founded STEMi Makers wins spot in HundrED’s Top 100 global innovators

Fellow(s): Fellow-founded STEMi Makers wins spot in HundrED’s Top 100 global innovators

Country: Nigeria

Cohort: 2022

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

STEMi Makers, an organization founded by fellow Amanda Obidike (Nigeria, 2022), has recently earned a place among HundrED’s top 100 most impactful innovations that are changing the face of education in a post-COVID world. HundrED is a mission-driven global organization based in Finland that seeks to recognize and amplify the visibility of global educators who are making a positive impact on global K-12 education through impactful and scalable innovations. STEMi Makers was selected as a top 100 finalist among nearly 3500 applicants reviewed by a committee of academics, educators, innovators, students and leaders from 113 countries. Founded in 2018, STEMi Makers is a platform that works to improve African students’ digital literacy, future-focused skills and employment outcomes by training their educators in how to adopt new competency-based skills and knowledge. They achieve this by hosting bootcamps and partnering with companies and organizations that can provide resources, training and learning opportunities for targets across the African continent. “Our future economic growth,” Amanda states, “depends on an aligned education & future-focused system that supports developmental efforts in generating talents needed to become self-reliant & problem-solvers using STEM.”

Report Date...: 12/26/2022

Central & South Asian Fellows Push Promo for TW 2023

Fellow(s): Central & South Asian Fellows Push Promo for TW 2023

Country: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Cohort: 2018, 2019, 2022

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

Fellows from Central and South Asia have been making a coordinated effort to increase applications from their region in 2023. This month the Fall 2022 Kyrgyz team, Darika Aldasheva, Nora Azygalieva, Bermet Dosmombetova, Dinara Moldosheva and Kseniia Tysganova, shared their recent program experience on a panel for the TECHAIM community. This event was echoed by Turkmen fellows Maral Rejepova (2019) and Maral Hudaybergenova (2018), and Uzbeki fellows Inobat Allobergenova (2022), Lilya Gafarova (2022) and Yuliya Tyan (2022), who livestreamed informational events at American Spaces in Ashgabat and Tashkent. On solo missions, Amara Dar (Pakistan, 2022) held a TechWomen-themed guest lecture for WEmpower, Kseniia Tysganova held an application brief on Instagram Live with her U.S. Embassy and Zharkyn Chsheglova (2022) gave an in-depth walk-through of the program for DevFest Women 2022 by Women Tech Makers Kazakhstan. In closing she said, “if there is a life-changing experience that allows you to find meaning and expand the boundaries of your thinking, it is TechWomen. Be brave. Believe in yourself. Apply for this program.”

Report Date...: 12/26/2022

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