North America | United States | Adventure

The women of NASA are looking to the lunar horizon

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Growing up, Holly Ridings, Anne McClain and Nujoud Merancy dreamed of space. But they didn't let those dreams rest to become flights of childhood fancy. Now, all three women work at NASA. McClain is an astronaut who just returned from a six-month stint on the International Space Station. Merancy is the Exploration Mission Planning and Analysis lead for the Orion spacecraft that will be part of the Artemis mission in 2024. And Ridings is the first female chief flight director. And they're all working toward the goal of landing the first woman on the moon by 2024.
Asia | Kyrgyzstan | Career

Kyrgyzstan’s space women blast off from male dominance

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Having grown up in one of the poorest and most conservative regions in Kyrgyzstan, 17-year-old Begaiym Isaakova never imagined she would work in tech, let alone be part of a team of young women building the country's first spacecraft. By age 15, Isaakova was shocked to see her peers in Jalal-Abad being married off, but not too surprised. The message that girls should prioritise knowing how to serve men started early and was everywhere, including in schools and homes. Instead of being sent down the aisle in a country where early and forced marriage - including by bride kidnap - is common
South Asia | Afghanistan | Science

Finally, visas in hand, Afghan girls depart for the U.S. and a global robotics competition

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When Afghan 10th-grader Fatemeh Qaderian learned that her girls’ robotics team had been denied visas to attend an international competition in Washington — despite applying twice — the 14-year-old said she “lost hope.” “We worked hard and spent a lot of time,” said Qaderian, who flew back and forth with her teammates from their hometown in western Afghanistan to apply at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. “I called my parents and told them what happened, and they were upset, too.” Those emotions morphed into elation as Qaderian and her teammates boarded a plane at Kabul Interna
North America | United States | Technology

Women in tech winner at Mac

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A McMaster engineering student has won an important award from the Anita Borg Institute, a women-in-tech organization in the United States. "I was in tears when I found out that I won the award," said Alyssia Jovellanos, who is in her second year in the engineering department's computer science program. Jovellanos is the first female president of McMaster's Computer Science Society and spends her summers and spare time teaching code to hundreds of grade school kids through a Comp Science outreach program.
South Asia | Australia | Science

Female students dominate Australia’s largest STEM event

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Female high school students took centre stage at the largest STEM event ever held in Australia: the combined National Finals of the F1inSchools Technology Challenge, Subs in Schools Technology Challenge and Land Rover 4X4 in Schools Technology Challenge. The inaugural Subs in Schools competition was won by an all-girl team 'Athena' from St. Peters Girls School in Adelaide. The second and third placed teams in the 'rookie' (Development) class of the F1 competition were all-girls. When the three top teams stood on the podium to receive their trophies there were nine girl students and four male
International | Entrepreneurship

Bridgit takes top prize at Google for Entrepreneurs’ inaugural women’s demo day

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Lauren Lake and Mallorie Brodie, co-founders of Waterloo Region’s Bridgit, took top prize at Google for Entrepreneur’s inaugural Demo Day: Women’s Edition. The event was spurred by the fact that female founders get just 3-4 percent of the venture captial pie, despite the amazing companies they’re building globally. To be eligible to compete, the startups needed at least one female founder and to be actively raising a Series A round between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000. Google for Entrepreneurs received 450 applications from over 40 countries, and Bridgit was among the 11 female-led
Middle East | Lebanon | Technology

Women in Lebanon show computer coding is not just for the boys

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On 21 November, in Bliss Hall at the American University of Beirut (AUB), a group of nearly 50 young computer programmers gathered at 8am for a hackathon. After coffee and a quick croissant, they were divided into 10 teams, and spent the next 10 hours developing Android apps to solve a social problem of their choice, in line with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. While 20 years ago, the term "hacking" might have connoted images of sinister dweebs clad in black, committing cyber crimes in a grimy basement, today "hack" has been incorporated into polite society; to hack something s
North America | United States | Education

Cards Against Humanity Offers $500,000 In Scholarships To Women In Tech

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For a company geared toward “horrible” people, Cards Against Humanity sure does do some pretty meaningful things. Earlier this year, the popular party game announced it would be selling a science-centric 30-card expansion pack to raise money toward its Science Ambassador Scholarship fund, which will provide full-ride, four-year scholarships to women pursuing undergraduate degrees in STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering or math. The pack, co-authored by "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" creator Zach Weinersmith andBad Astronomy author Phil Plait, has been a hit, drummi
International | Science

This is what a female engineer looks like

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Last summer, we were lamenting the lack of women engineers in the media. There are tons of articles and data about how women are a minority in the software industry, which is a sad reality. Meanwhile, the few articles that specifically showcase women in tech create an unattainable archetype of a woman that somehow manages to run marathons, raise a family, always looks impeccable, and marginalizes the amazing technology that she built. As software engineers, we get asked a lot about what it’s like to be a woman in tech. We decided to take control and do something about it, and that’s how
International | Science

#GirlsWithToys Proves Women Belong in Science

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"Many scientists, I think, secretly are what I call 'boys with toys,'" California Institute of Technology astronomy and planetary science professor Shrinivas Kulkarni told NPR in an interview published Saturday. Kulkarni may have intended to counter the false assumption that science can't be fun, but in referring to these scientists as "boys" he erased an already marginalized population of the field: Women. That's why female scientists took to Twitter to remind the world they may be underrepresented in the field, but they're doing crucial work — and having as much fun doing so as their mal
North America | United States | Society

How This Bathroom Sign Supports Women In Tech – It was never a dress

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Apparently the well-known women's bathroom icon had a secret. That triangle dress was never really a dress at all. It was a superhero cape, and we’ve been looking at her back all this time. Now that her identity is blown, she'll use her superpowers to take on one of the most heated issues in technology today: the underrepresentation of women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematic) fields. The brainchild of Axosoft’s Tania Katan, the new graphic leads the charge for the company's #ItWasNeverADress campaign, which just launched Thursday at the Girls In Tech conferen
International | Entrepreneurship

4 Girls Who Will Not Shut Up

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Carolyn Malachi’s “Nothing” is the perfect anthem for the IGNITE International Girls Hackathon where girls around the world created innovative and incredible solutions to our safe spaces challenge — all in less than 24 hours! Join us in celebrating the fierceness of this year’s winning team from Brazil and their app Não Me Calo!  “Não Me Calo” means “I will not shut up” in the app creators’ native Portuguese. The app lets women and girls review and rank restaurants and other public spaces based on how they treat women and girls!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nu33
North America | United States | Business

A tech veteran’s ‘amazing’ new chapter championing women

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Who: Cynthia Tee, 45, a 20-year Microsoft veteran. Her latest venture: Tee starts her first day Monday as executive director of Ada Developers Academy, a free software-development school in Seattle for women. Why the change: Tee, who has a master’s in computer science from MIT, took a leave of absence from Microsoft in September. When she heard about the opening at Ada, she knew she wanted the position and officially left Microsoft earlier this month. Having been a mentor and mentee at Microsoft, Tee wants to see more women in tech. “The whole concept of championing women and support
South Asia | Indonesia | Business

Wobe: Entrepreneurial tech for disadvantaged women in SEA

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TODAY, April 16, marks the soft launch of Wobe (pronounced ‘Woh-Bay’), a small startup with a very big mission: To enable the entrepreneurial will of women in Indonesia. At its core, Wobe is a micro-business app with an e-wallet, designed to make it easy for anyone with a smartphone and mobile Internet access to start a business in selling prepaid phone airtime, electricity and water payment vouchers, and even bus and train tickets. It is a business and mission borne out of the time founder Adrianna Tan has spent over the years volunteering at non-profit organisations focused on he