Youssra – Women Who STEM

Youssra, TechGirls 2021, Algeria

Read about Youssra’s Women Who STEM Project  opens in a new windowhere. She was recognized with an Outstanding Project Award and has made an incredible impact!

The TechGirls program was a life-changing experience for me. I became part of a tech community full of supportive and empowering women. The TechGirls program built my leadership skills and made me more confident to share my knowledge and help other girls follow their dreams.

Through this program, I discovered many tech subfields and realized that the world of tech is a great fit for me. I met girls from all over the world with different experiences sharing the same love of tech and passion for serving their communities. I also experienced life as a college student by taking the Virginia Tech course, and learned the basics of data science. Thanks to this course, I plan to study data science at a university. 

During the program, we discussed society’s problems and ways we can solve them. I wanted to work on the lack of women in leadership positions in the STEM industry despite the large number of women entering these fields in my country. I wanted to expose young girls to role models who are females in STEM to give an idea of the different careers and encourage them to become the next generations of leaders in STEM.

I named my project Women Who STEM. We held a series of virtual meetings where I invited female leaders in STEM to discuss their careers and provide young girls with tips to start their own. Many women and girls attended my meetings. They got the chance to learn more about the tech field and meet inspiring women. They were very grateful for the initiative and became motivated to learn more about these fields. Women Who STEM is my first initiative in the tech community. I discovered my passion for sharing and empowering youth and women. Getting the chance to connect with inspiring women as well as TechWomen and TechGirls alumnae and seeing how the program impacted their careers was inspiring.

My next step is a workshop where I’ll share my experience with the TechGirls program in my high school and help new girls be part of this amazing program.