This week we are celebrating International Girls in ICT Day by highlighting the next generation of women who will pursue careers in information and communication technologies. In many countries around the world, it is still difficult for women and girls to gain access to education in general, let alone technology education.
Afghanistan continues to be one of the most challenging countries in the world for women and education. Approximately 85 percent of Afghan women are illiterate and don’t have any formal education. Afghan entrepreneur and computer scientist Roya Mahboob is trying to change this.
Mahboob founded the Digital Citizen Fund in 2012 to give Afghan girls educational opportunities. The organization has so far built 11 state of the art ICT classrooms throughout Afghanistan where girls can learn basic digital literacy and English language skills. Students also learn about e-commerce with Bitcoin via a new social networking tool called bitLanders. The Digital Citizen Fund also just started a new project called “Superheroes” where the students draw pictures of their own superheroes and the drawings will eventually be processed in a 3D printer!
Here are a couple of videos about the work of the Digital Citizen Fund:
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