Alae – Making Dreams Come True

Alae, TechGirls 2020, Morocco

Alae is a co-founder of Tech4All with opens in a new windowAmina, you can read more opens in a new windowhere. She was recognized with an Outstanding Project Award and has made an incredible impact!

Dreams do come true! I can’t believe that I am now part of the TechGirls alumni network. The TechGirls program was a big goal I had back in 2019. I’ve always been fascinated by the inspiring TechGirls and reading all of their impact stories, and now I am writing mine! 

Through my participation in 2020/2021, TechGirls taught me more than I expected. I learned effective leadership, networking, communication, project planning, but most importantly, I built a community of supporters: a sisterhood. 

As one of my follow-on projects, I founded a Mental Wellness community. A website in which we share awareness about mental health, help with personal growth, and provide our visitors with the latest youth opportunities. My participation in the MERGE program really inspired me to launch this initiative and to start advocating about the importance of mental wellbeing in our lives. Since the beginning, I had so much support and encouragement from the TechGirls, which made me start hiring a team of volunteer bloggers and graphic designers for our Instagram page. I love it when people come to me and give me their feedback about the organization and its impact. It encourages me to further my knowledge in the field and make Mental Wellness a platform for everyone to write and impact others. You can find all links here. 

I also co-founded Tech4All academy with Amina (2021 TechGirl), in which our beginner level participants learn how to code by matching them with experienced volunteer tutors. Participants get introduced to the tech field and its diverse and unique paths, build their professional network, and most importantly, get inspired to serve people with technology and use it for good. We successfully launched 3 courses so far (web development, programming with python, and JavaScript) with over 70 participants overall. We promote equality and inclusion. Our statistics show that over 75% of our students so far are females from underserved countries. This encourages us even more to close the gender gap in STEM. Find our page here. 

My message for anyone who is interested in participating in TechGirls is: just apply and don’t hesitate to make your voice heard, the world needs you.