Impact Stories from Professional Growth Policy Area
Fellow featured in interview about STEM entrepreneurship
Fellow(s): Zeenat Anjum
Country: Pakistan
Cohort: 2019
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
This week, 2019 fellow Zeenat Anjum was interviewed on The Aijaz Qureshi Show, a program that features emerging women leaders and promotes women empowerment in Pakistan. The program was streamed live on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and encouraged its viewers to comment with questions about Zeenat, her work and the TechWomen program.
During the interview, Zeenat spoke about entrepreneurship within STEM, reflecting on her TechWomen experience and encouraging women to pursue exchange program opportunities. She highlighted her own startup, Digiwrite, an online platform that connects students and teachers through virtual classrooms and onsite workshops. She also had the opportunity to share updates about Bacha-O, Team Pakistan’s seed-grant winning initiative that aims to reduce childhood sexual abuse.
Report Date...: 12/9/19
Fellows named Next Einstein Forum Ambassadors
Fellow(s): Chioma Ezedi, Sebay Momoh
Country: Nigeria, Sierra Leone
Cohort: 2013, 2018
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth, Youth Engagement
This week, it was announced that 2016 fellow of Nigeria Chioma Ezedi and 2018 fellow of Sierra Leone Sebay Momoh were named to the 2019-2021 class of Next Einstein Forum Ambassadors. The NEF Ambassador program selects young technology and science champions from each African country to lead public engagement activities and partner with established mentors and researchers to advance their own careers in STEM.
Chioma, a software programmer and founder of STEMteers, is hoping to accelerate collaboration with other STEM advocacy groups, using the local dialect for outreach in order to make NEF’s Africa Science Week successful in every part of Nigeria. She is also eager to localize science advocacy in her community: “Nothing thrives if only a small percentage of the population understands it,” she says.
Sebay is a petroleum engineer and the program coordinator for STEM Women SL, an NGO that aims to improve science education in Sierra Leone. As a NEF ambassador, she will continue to advocate for quality science education in Sierra Leone. “I am passionate about creating the right ecosystem to nurture brilliant and innovative ideas of young scientists in Sierra Leone,” says Sebay. “I want to shine a light on young creative minds, source funding to help them improve on their ideas and also inspire others. The more people are exposed to opportunities of this nature, the more hands and minds we have to work together. There is power in collaboration.”
Report Date...: 12/2/19
Fellow shares five entrepreneurship lessons in TEDx talk
Fellow(s): Ameni Mansouri
Country: Tunisia
Cohort: 2018
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
2018 fellow Ameni Mansouri was a featured speaker at the inaugural TEDx Sidi Bou Said, held this week in Carthage. With a theme of “Brighten your Future,” the speaker series invited nine entrepreneurs, CEOs and artists to speak about imagination and inspiration.
Ameni is the co-founder and CEO of Dabchy.com, an online fashion marketplace with 450,000 users across Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. In her talk, she presented five ingredients for starting a successful business from scratch. Through the lessons, she shared her takeaways from her entrepreneurship journey with Dabchy.com, including quitting her stable job in Paris to launch her business. “People are always asking me, ‘How did you get the courage to leave a stable job? How do you work in something you did not study?’” says Ameni, who has a background in pharmaceutical and biomedical engineering. “I tried to answer all these questions during my talk by explaining how important it is to take risks, how to choose the right partners, how to set the culture and the importance of the networking.”
Report Date...: 12/2/19
Mentor and fellow co-author Okta blog post
Fellow(s): Madhavi Bhasin (mentor), Heba El Houjairy
Country: Lebanon, United States
Cohort: 2019
Policy Area(s): Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Professional Growth
TechWomen Professional Mentor Madhavi Bhasin and her 2019 Emerging Leader Heba El Houjairy co-authored a blog post reflecting on their TechWomen experience together at host company Okta.
Madhavi is currently Okta’s diversity and inclusion program manager; Heba, an entrepreneur, is co-founder of Smubu, a music streaming startup based in East Africa. In the Okta blog post, Heba writes about her mission at Okta to gain tools on how to scale her startup. She lists each employee who helped her gain lessons in innovation, marketing, building a brand and more. “I am thankful for every call, every connection and every email Madhavi sent to Okta teams in order to help me get the most of my time here at Okta,” Heba writes. “She…connected the dots, and paved my path to have a great learning experience.”
Report Date...: 12/2/19
Fellow hosts Twitter leadership at women in tech event
Fellow(s): Adejoke Adekunle
Country: Nigeria
Cohort: 2019
Policy Area(s): Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
During her TechWomen mentorship at Twitter, 2019 fellow Adejoke Adekunle had the opportunity to sit down with co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey and speak about her work as a marketing consultant and CEO of VVM, a marketing technology company. After seeing a tweet that he’d be visiting Nigeria with Twitter, Adejoke approached him, inviting his team to meet with local women in tech during their trip.
In addition to her work with VVM, Adejoke is the founder of The African Tech Woman, an organization that supports African women in starting and growing businesses in tech. On November 12, Jack Dorsey, alongside CTO Parag Agrawal and team leads Kayvon Beykpour and Mike Montano, attended a lunch and panel hosted by The African Tech Woman. There, the Twitter team spoke with local women in tech and joined a panel that discussed the Nigerian tech scene. During the panel, they shared their perspective on leadership, building quality products and their approach to diversity and inclusion.
“I’ve experienced firsthand how committed Twitter is to building a diverse team,” said Adejoke. “Jack’s trip was an opportunity to learn from entrepreneurs, developers, policy makers, investors and anyone he could meet on what they did, the challenges they encountered and how Twitter can help. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have led this and I’m super inspired.”
Report Date...: 11/25/19
Fellow interviewed about TechWomen experience
Fellow(s): Aigerim Kunadilova
Country: Kazakhstan
Cohort: 2019
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth
This month, 2019 fellow Aigerim Kunadilova was interviewed for a feature in Tengri News, an English language news outlet in Kazakhstan. In the article, Aigerim spoke about her TechWomen experience and her work as a woman in tech.
Aigerim is the founder of Top Generation Group, an online education company that offers international English exam preparation courses such as TOEFL and IELTS. With no formal background in tech, Aigerim shared her journey building an international online Edtech business and growing it into a flourishing company. She also speaks about her TechWomen mentorship at Twitter, where she gained new skills, tools and contacts: “I met and talked to managers of the company, where I got valuable tips on improving my online school and choosing programmers for my team,” she said.
Report Date...: 11/25/19
Mentor(s): Sreedevi Rao (mentor)
Company: LinkedIn
Mentor Type: Professional
Policy Area(s): Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
This week, Professional Mentor Sreedevi Rao shared her takeaways as a TechWomen mentor at LinkedIn in a guest blog post published on the TechWomen website. The post, Breaking Boundaries in the Skies, outlines Sreedevi’s experience mentoring Emerging Leader Refilwe Ledwaba of South Africa, the founder of GFPA Foundation and the first African woman to earn a commercial helicopter pilot license.
Throughout the mentorship, Sreedevi and Refilwe collaborated to expand Refilwe’s skillsets, attending Toastmasters sessions together and connecting Refilwe to valuable contacts outside of LinkedIn. On her final day of the mentorship, Refilwe shared the changes she’d already implemented at her foundation. “While I was very proud to see her applying learnings so quickly and looking to what’s next, I knew I’d miss her infectious energy each day at work,” writes Sreedevi. “She is truly an inspiration and a role model; I’m lucky our professional paths have crossed. Being a mentor…is one of the most rewarding parts of my career.”
Report Date...: 11/25/19
Fellow hosts hackathon for justice at World Bank Group in DC
Fellow(s): Lindiwe Matlali
Country: South Africa, United States
Cohort: 2017
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Education Diplomacy/Mentoring, Empowering Women and Girls, Entrepreneurship, Professional Growth, Youth Engagement
This month, 2017 fellow of South Africa Lindiwe Matlali’s initiative Africa Teen Geeks collaborated with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank Group to hold a global #Hackathon4Justice in Washington, D.C. Hosted at the World Bank Headquarters, the three-day hackathon brought 25 students ages 13-18 from Bulgaria, India, Mexico, Tunisia and South Africa together to develop solutions to combat exploitation and promote peace in their home countries and beyond. TechWomen director Katie Zee, Professional Mentor Eileen Brewer, and three 2019 TechWomen fellows attended the event; Eileen provided coaching and mentorship to the country teams, guiding them in crystallizing their ideas and presenting their pitches.
Over the three days, the five student teams learned from World Bank and UNODC leaders as they developed innovative solutions that promoted inclusive societies and access to justice for all. A panel of judges, which included Amy Christianson from the Department of State, named Mexico the winner at the end of the hackathon: the team’s interactive game for young children will be able to send red flag warnings to teachers about potential domestic violence situations. As a prize, the team will travel to the UN’s 14th Crime Congress in Kyoto in April 2020 to present their app. At the conclusion of the event, Lindiwe addressed all teams, saying “I have been so inspired to hear all your ideas. When you go home, do the same and inspire your peers to make a difference.”
Report Date...: 11/18/19
Mentor(s): Shalaka Prabhune (mentor)
Company: TiVo
Mentor Type: Impact
Policy Area(s): Economic Impact, Empowering Women and Girls, Professional Growth
This week, TechWomen Impact Coach Shalaka Prabhune was awarded the gold Stevie Award for Digital Transformer of the Year. The Stevie Awards for Women in Business shine a spotlight on leading women executives, entrepreneurs and women-run organizations, recognizing their contributions to their respective industries. The winners were announced at the 16th annual awards dinner in New
York City.
This year, more than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals around the world were submitted; more than 200 members of seven juries determined the finalists and winners. Shalaka, the head of corporate IT at TiVo, was recognized under the HCL Red Ladder Women in Technology category, which recognizes women leaders who have positively impacted their industries while serving as role models for other women.
This year, Shalaka was an Impact Coach for team Jordan, who who won a 2019 seed grant for their mental health outreach platform, Sanad.
Report Date...: 11/18/19
Fellow awarded AI engineer scholarship in Spain
Fellow(s): Alice Mbui
Country: Kenya
Cohort: 2015
Policy Area(s): Professional Growth
Recently, 2015 fellow Alice Mbui was selected for the #WeAllFitScholarship from Akademy.AI, an Artificial Intelligence training academy in Barcelona, Spain. The scholarship aims to ensure gender parity in the AI field by offering a full scholarship for the their intensive 10-week AI Engineer Bootcamp.
The training, currently in its fourth week, combines fundamentals of machine learning and deep learning with hands-on practical programming. The last module focuses on developing a real-world project based on the student’s specific goals. Alice is interested in exploring how governments, specifically Kenya’s, can use AI to increase efficiency and build new systems. “I’m excited about the exposure that I will gain,” says Alice. “The mentorship I got from my experience in TechWomen has allowed me to harness my capability and push forward in pursuit of building systems for the future of my country.”
Report Date...: 11/18/19
