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Empowering girls and women through technology and making them financial empower through mobile internet
Women in Digital is an all-star team of female technologists dedicated to bringing more Bangladeshi women into the digital economy. Empowering women with the training and job connections they need to cash in on the digital age.
Start with their success, Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNT1XbHyqb0&t=30s
Women in Digital (WID) is dedicated to promoting women's and girls’ education and empowerment through technology. Established in 2013, WID aims to create digital platforms to support, promote, and empower women and girls in areas of information and technology. Women in Digital is concerned about the existing digital and gender divide within the IT sector and thus is focused to unpack these challenges and offer practical solutions along with advocating for inclusive and empowering policy provisions. Since its establishment, it has trained and empowered more than 7868 adolescent girls and women all over Bangladesh. Women in Digital are not only working towards the digital literacy of women and girls but also offering market-relevant IT skills including online business development, offering digital marketing space to profile products, development of the app, reaching to targeted online customers, and raising individual profiles with special focus to women and girls. In addition, we are working towards digital-economic inclusion and the empowerment of women and girls. We are proud to share that ‘Women in Digital’ is the only women-led, women and girls’ focused organization within the IT sector in Bangladesh. Thousands of women and girls that we have trained have not only started jobs, do online business but also significantly changed deep-rooted social and gender norms in Bangladesh. A combination of IT, financial inclusion, gender, and empowerment aspects makes us unique as we aspire to see women's and girls’ leadership and economic independence in a more sustained way which will have an inter-generational impact. We also express our global solidarity on the same.
From 2013 to 2020 we have reached all 64 districts in Bangladesh. We have trained 8590 women in all over Bangladesh and 7060 are successfully contributing to our GDP. We have developed our own curriculum and based on student capacity assessment we provided them the courses. We trained our girls totally free of cost, after their graduation from our center we provided them a job and connected them with the job market.
Testimonial From State Minister for Ministry of Post. Telecommunication & IT Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh: http://womenindigital.net/project/testimonial/2
Our Mission
Women in Digital aims to support, develop, recognize and promote achievements of women in ICT. WID ‘s mission is to empower women in Digital Platform to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and monetary prosperity. Successfully cultivate mutually beneficial networks between industry, academia and government with a focus on women working in the technology industries across the country and the world.
WID has focused on the following things,
Digital Agency (LuminaDev) :
Lumina Digital is a female-led agency, proudly operating out of Bangladesh. It was founded in 2013 by Achia Nila, an internationally recognized technology leader who also serves as an International IT Expert and the Country Director for Women who Code. Nila founded Lumina Dev alongside Women in Digital, a training center empowering women in Bangladesh with advanced technology skills. Many of the engineers at Lumina are the top-performing graduates from that program. 35 women engineers work together, They are developing IT products for international Clients like, software, Mobile applications, Games and graphic work. We mostly work for Australia, Japan, and the USA market.
We mostly provided service to the clients, besides that we have our own product line.
Our website for Digital Agency: www.luminadev.com
Tech School: Empowering women with the training and job connections they need to cash in on the digital age. We have both physical institutes and an online school. The physical Tech schools are in different areas of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Ramgonj, Lakshmipur, Kurigram and Mymensingh which will run like permanent institutes. WiD have an online platform named mashtor.com
Mashtor.com is a global marketplace where learners and tutors connect. Through its intuitive and integrated online classroom, tutors are able to cultivate the internal motivation and potential of learners, and thus help them achieve their goals. It's a place where the connection is made instantly, knowledge is shared and acquired in real-time, and community is created while breaking geographical boundaries.
Website: www.mashtor.com
Some highlight of our school,
Women in Digital Mymensingh
Led by Nahid Binte Anis, A non-tech limited educated girl who has changed her life through technology and earned through tech. We have met with her in our workshop and selected her as our community leader. We have provided her mentoring and training support. Initially, she started outsourcing work through us; now we have set up an office in her village. She trained other underprivileged girls and women like her. Now we have 15 girl's and women tech teams at Mymensingh and they are working in the international market. Some of the girls have come to our office but most of them are working from home and we have provided laptops from our office.
Women in Digital Jamalpur
According to their local people capacity we have designed their different projects. This community is very good in hand stitching work. So we promote our e-commerce project.
Women in Digital Ramgonj
We have designed our project based on geographical assessments. In this area we get two types of people one group is underprivileged and another group is privileged. As we run a social enterprise so for the privileged people we have offered paid courses and underprivileged people we have offered vocational courses. So that both people are benefited from us according to their needs. Of course, our model is learning for earning here as we are living in a developing country.
Women in Digital Nepal
Women In Digital Nepal is an initiative of a Social Enterprise that has created programmers to help women advance by providing access to Digital Platform. http://widnepal.org
Women in E-commerce: Empowering rural women with the e-commerce market place to promote their handmade product. So, Rural Women can earn immediately. Women In E-commerce with this we are completely focusing on rural women. Here we create an international market for their handicraft products through our social media and website. The entire teams from craftswomen, photographers to digital coders are women.
Women in E-commerce has been Empowering Women With the Latest Tools, Resources & Skills to Do more business using the Web (Internet) to promote their business via Social Media, Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Mobile Marketing, Training and More! We have an online market place for all small businesswomen. At the COVID 19 pandemic, we have supported through our online marketplace.
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/352632694938551
Website: https://womenine-commerce.com
Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is the premier organization with a national reach dedicated to bringing together women in cybersecurity from academia, research and industry to share knowledge, experience, networking and mentoring. Partnership with British Council we have trained Bangladeshi girls in cyberSecurity and at the same time in partnership with the ICT Division, we have run a cyber awareness campaign all over Bangladesh.
First online job portal for women (established in 2014): Women in Digital partners with local and international organizations to provide access to flexible employment opportunities for graduating students.
WID Career center is a perfect online recruiting hub for women. Tailored to the needs of today's working women, WID Career center provides easy access to top employers and recruiters who are actively looking to recruit & hire women. WID Career center can also help thousands of women to find jobs in their chosen career. It’s a job portal for women.
At the same time we sell some books in our job portal based on student requests.
Link: http://womenindigital.net/wid-tech-school/views/jobPortal/
Online Job marketplace for women
WiD online marketplace is a global online employment solution for women seeking jobs and the employers who need great people. We've been doing this for more than 2 years, and have expanded from our roots as a "job board" to a global provider of a full array of job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management products, and services.
At the heart of our success and our future is innovation: We are changing the way women think about work, and we're helping them actively improve their lives and their workforce performance with new technology, tools, and practices.
At WiD online marketplace, we work to bring humanity and opportunity to the job market, to enhance lives, businesses, and communities around the world.
Weblink: http://job.womenindigital.net/
Competition for women to make them confident in the tech field: Women In Digital arranged different types of competition for inspiring women in product development and growing their confidence in the technology. Every year we will arrange a
“Digital Innovation Challenge for Women”
The sole purpose of the “Digital Innovation Challenge for Women 2016” is to create an interest in technology among the women in Bangladesh. We have arranged this type of competition for the first time in Bangladesh to encourage women to come into the tech world and motivate them for the future. A total of 248 women participated from all over Bangladesh, representing 49 different projects. The event lasted one and half months – it started on January 28th, 2016 and finished on March 8th, 2016, on International Women’s Day.
During the initial phase, 32 teams among the 49 teams had been pre-selected. The first presentation for these teams was held on 20th February. The teams were assigned with different local mentors for proper supervision in order to develop their ideas into a working prototype with a full proof business plan. The ideas included solving issues in fields like medical, security, traffic education, etc. Later, 21 teams were shortlisted for the second phase and their presentation was held on February 27th. Finally, 13 of the teams continued into the finals and all of them had their presentation done on 5th March. On the final day of the event, March 8th, the top three teams were awarded. But every participant facilitated the event.
Through this initiative, the organizers are hopeful to create a new bunch of female leaders and entrepreneurs with skills that are necessary for the girls to pitch their own business ideas in the future: create teams and also develop any solution from scratch which covers everything from planning to execution of the solution in terms of technological development, business development and marketing and sales. The organizers also hope to increase the morale and confidence among the participants to tackle any problems in society through technological means.
Every year we have arranged it with different partners like Microsoft, EMK Center and others for making some good women lead startUp. More Details.
"National Hackathon for Women”
The 1st ever “National Hackathon for Women” in South Asia organized by Women In Digital in collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD). 1500 girls and women applied for this program, around 523 tech enthusiasts women across the country took part in the 36-hour non-stop event and tried to make progressive and unique inventions for giving technology-based solutions to nine selected problems. More Details
Kid Education program: A learning mobile application for kids developed by all women engineers from lumina dev. It is a complete child-centered, interactive audio/visual learning package for free!
Children can also use their creativity and explore their imagination via drawing and coloring. They can play games and have fun. They can improve their mathematical problem-solving skills. It is also useful for all Bangla speakers and Non- speakers of all ages who want to learn and write Bangla letters, numbers and words.
Pathshala : Bangla and English Alphabet, Number, Colors, Game, Shapes, Bangladesh information, famous people of Bangladesh
Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=patshala.digital.women&hl=en
A project for Mothers: The only social media app for sharing recipes of different types of cuisines, from all around the world.
FEATURES:
• Get step-by-step instructions how to make your preferred dish and to see the pictures of the dish you want to create.
• Watch the videos from cooks to get a better idea of how to make the dish.
• Search for your favorite cooks around the world, to get their delicious recipes to make an exact replica of their food art. You can also search recipes by name, ingredients, cuisine and origin.
• Like the recipes to save them for later. Follow your fellow cooks to get their new recipes on your feed. You can even comment on the cook’s page if you like.
• If you, yourself, are a good cook then don’t feel shy, and post your own recipes and pictures of your dish on the app.
• Vegan food? No problem, you can filter by what matters to you like vegan, gluten-free, low crab etc.
• On the app, everyone’s account will be public. Hence everyone can see everyone else's recipes of tasty food.
Get involved with social issues:
Ensuring finfancial empowerment for Child Marriage victim through Technology:
According to the UNICEF report, Bangladesh has the highest number of girls married off before 15. Over 700 million girls worldwide were victims of child marriage and one in every three of them were married off before 15. In Kurigram, 78% of girls under 18 were married. According to current statistics, Kurigram has been identified as the 3rd city in the world for child marriage.
According to the UNICEF report, Bangladesh has the highest number of girls married off before 15. Over 700 million girls worldwide were victims of child marriage and one in every three of them were married off before 15. In Kurigram, 78% of girls under 18 were married. According to current statistics, Kurigram has been identified as the 3rd city in the world for child marriage.
To address this challenge, in 2018 Women in Digital supported by CARE and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to examine how to support married adolescent girls in the Kurigram district of Rangpur division in Bangladesh. The project aimed to work with 200 girls of Punchgacchi and Belgachha unions under Kurigram Sadar Upazila in Kurigram district.
To reduce child marriage and to empower the girls’ Women in Digital conducted ICT training program. The project aims to build the capability of girls in IT skills and job placement: Basic Computing, Graphics Design, Web Developing, Digital Marketing and E-Commerce. Along with the courses, English and Soft Skill courses are mandatory for all the 200 girls.
In the 3-month training program, 200 girls are trained in 5 courses so that they can build their own self-reliance. In the training program we trained 200 girls in those 5 courses. 20 girls are trained in each course.
After successfully completing the training program some students feedback are-” After my marriage, I was in a fix that what should I do other than household chores to support my family financially. WID illuminated me with the lights of computer education. With the help of WID, Now I hope and dream to jump over any hurdles of life and become financially independent as well as solvent.”
-Archana Rani from Digital marketing course
”After the E-commerce training course I will not sit idly, now I can do something for my betterment”. -Konika Rani, Student of E-commerce Course
To make their training success, we have provided 200 laptops to all the girls who are undergoing training. This initiative has been taken so that they can apply this training in real life.
After the training, they change their lifestyle. Some of the girls are now, doing a great job. Some of them have become a trainer, some of them become a graphics designer. Some are freelancers and some run their own business.
Empowering transgender through technology:
Trained 120 transgender to the mobile money transfer technology now they are running their own small business and they own money transferring shop. Some of them start outsourcing by using mobile internet. We have given them e-commerce data entry training too.
Empowering sex worker through technology
Trained 100 sex worker to the mobile servicing technology now they are running their own small business and they own a mobile service center.
As our main motto is Empowering women through technology so we are trying to give them an alternative income source. For example, we are giving training on ICT, e-commerce, mobile servicing, mobile money transfer. When they receive this type of training then they have changed their income source. This is the way we are protecting them.
Online support “NLP for Women Empowerment” (COVID - 19 Financial Health Support):
We have taken this initiative for COVID 19 pandemic. This initiative is empowering for all women that are committed to building a successful career or looking to excel in their current role. This initiative has been specifically designed based on my 20 years’ experience of working in male-dominated environments together with NLP techniques.
We have taken this initiative for COVID 19 pandemic. People are in a Lockdown situation and they are getting frustrated. Many people are losing their job and lost their determination. For keeping a stable mind we have taken the initiative. An NLP expert will be taken different sessions through our platform. It will be a common session for all at a very reasonable price. We will also arrange one to one sessions based on public demand.
The Women Empowerment program contains powerful methods and techniques that enable women to leverage their natural traits and styles, find their voice and build their competence and confidence to create a well-structured path to excellence and self-mastery.
The program is interactive, experiential and flexible to allow you to achieve the goals that are important to you personally. You can expect to learn skills and thinking that will enhance the way that you manage yourself as well as others, the way you communicate, influence, negotiate, manage change and throughout all of this the way that you coach yourself and others. Expect to have some fun too.
Outcome:
1. Appreciate the issues facing women in careers and how to deal with them
2. Better understand yourself and identify your strengths and talents
3. Understand your thinking patterns and create more empowering ones to increase your influence and performance
4. Develop and use persuasive communication patterns
5. Know What You Want to Achieve (and What Success Looks Like)
6. Develop Acuity (paying attention to how people respond to you)
7. Gain Flexibility (If you are not getting what you want, how to flex your style and approach to get the result you want and need)
8. Remove any limiting beliefs that are holding you back
Awareness Campaign and Workshop
We have visited 46 government universities in all over the bangladesh and 62 private universities with our one campaign “Empowerment Through Technology” and at the same time we did some technical workshops in each university. We have covered 108 universities in Bangladesh.
Financial literacy for Women
Low literacy rates dramatically impact the lives of women, demanding they work harder, take more time to pay debts and, sometimes settle for earning less.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that 3.8 million American adult women possess literacy skills below a “basic” level. The basic level refers to reading, writing and math skills at a third-grade level. This lack of education makes it difficult to understand bank statements, credit card agreements and other financial documents.
An American College of Financial Services literacy study of men and women between 60 and 75 found:
Thirty-five percent of men passed a quiz on retirement income literacy. Eighteen percent of women passed the same test
Those who passed were more likely to have a retirement plan, as well as a plan to cover the costs of long-term care.
Women lacking competency in financial literacy face serious repercussions, such as taking on large amounts of credit card debt, defaulting on student loans, and experiencing difficulty managing income, taxes and investments.
Managing money in the midst of life’s other priorities is no easy task. Women of all ages and backgrounds struggle with the pressure to earn enough, access education, care for a family and plan retirement.
Taking the initiative to educate women about complex financial decisions will help them achieve their next major milestone. Every informed financial decision women make gets closer to that goal.
For women entrepreneurs, we have provided free accounting software for their regular business.
In each and every way we want to implement technology and the internet to make their life easy
Women in Digital Helps Women through Career Counseling ( Pathfinder), Knowledge Repository, IT Product Development, E-commerce, Training and Workshop, Urban & Rural Reach, Mentoring Support, Competition for women, Women entrepreneurship development, SheForHe program for man technological empowerment for balancing gender equality.
Global Representations: Women in Digital represent more than 20 countries. We have received all the invitations from Government agencies and different International organizations.
State your goals
Our Goal:
Creating a voice for women in ICT by partnering with industry leaders in Information and Communications Technology to drive the gender diversity agenda in Bangladesh
- Women empowerment through technology also make them financial empower through ICT
- Provide a platform of connections, resources and opportunities in Information Technology
- Earning and earning scope through Technology
- Create a pipeline of women to fill leadership positions in Digital World
- Demonstrate that advancing women in Digital Platform
- Influence top leaders in government, academia and industry to recognize the power of women in IT and telecommunication industry.
- Encourage girls and young women to choose careers in technology.
- Developed some IT product(software, we app , mobile app and game) that can help human life
- Developed a roadmap to rural area to urban area and international market in e-commerce sector
- Now we are working on Bangladesh, Nepal and want to reaching the south Asia (India, Pakistan, SriLanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan etc) and the globally
- Finally, our goal is to enable each and every woman to become independent thinkers and be able to reflect that in their daily lives and be capable to earn money and self-dependency through using internet and mobile data.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
Poor families across Bangladesh are being hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, as many parents are losing their jobs. The pandemic continues to spread in a country where even washing hands to avoid contamination is a luxury and food is already scarce.
Only 15% of Bangladeshi workers earn more than $6 a day. The economic shutdown sparked by COVID-19 threatens millions of livelihoods in the country imminently.
But there are reasons for optimism, too.
On March 26th, when the government called for a country-wide lockdown, 10 million rickshaw drivers, day laborers, factory workers, maids and others raced to get home. The resilience of this country is seen in the eerily empty and quiet Dhaka streets, never before seen.
Governments the world over are struggling to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Like other countries, Bangladesh is completely lockdown. The government of the country lockdown many industries, garments, restricted people gathering and traveling. For that reason, many of the women workers are unemployed at this time and who manage to do work from home have to do unpaid care work. Women typically shoulder a greater burden of care. Some women who are freelancers or from ICT sector are less affected, due to existing capabilities to reach out to the global market straight through the internet. On average women did three times as much unpaid care work as men at home even before COVID-19. Now, formal sector female employees with children are balancing one or more of the following: work (if they still have it), childcare, homeschooling, elder care, and housework. Female-headed households are particularly vulnerable.
To help the underprivileged communities, Women in Digital, a tech social venture, has been providing food since the country went into isolation through their initiative ‘Food for All’. They have served 1347 families up until now. Most have been provided with 1 month's worth of food.
As we are working with underprivileged people we are facing different types of problems in this situation. We need to close all of our centers where women are coming for outsourcing work and e-commerce support. As it is a global pandemic so we are losing our international clients and most of the project has been on hold.
We need to stop all of our physical training and focus on our online training. But some of our students are unable to afford to buy mobile data and those who are able to afford mobile data but the quality of the internet connection is very bad.
We have also closed our offices and started working from home. Suddenly mobile operators have been increasing the mobile data price so girls are unable to buy the data pack and they are not able to continue their outsourcing work.
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
COVID-19: How we’re continuing to help our community.
To help the underprivileged communities, Women in Digital, a tech social venture, has been providing food since the country went into isolation through our initiative ‘Food for All’. We have served 1347 families up until now. Most have been provided with 1 month's worth of food. Most of the families belong to our student families.
We have our physical permanent center and girls are coming over there learning tech so dont want to stop the center. We have taken an initiative to develop our own online platform for our community. www.mashtor.com is our online e-learning platform. We have kept continuing our training classes through our platform and beside this we have used google class, MS team, Zoom etc. Now we have 180 students who are doing their classes on our online platform.
We develop it as a global marketplace where learners and teachers connect. Through its intuitive and integrated online classroom, teachers are able to cultivate the internal motivation and potential of learners, and thus help them achieve their goals. It's a place where the connection is made instantly, knowledge is shared and acquired in real-time, and community is created while breaking geographical boundaries.
Universal access to knowledge should be a right and not a privilege. However, bright, creative and ambitious people often lack resources or access to the help they need to be able to achieve self-actualization or contribute to their communities. Then there are people who want to share their knowledge and skills, yet lack the channel and tools to connect with others. Mashtor.com mission is to create these connections and empower people to share their knowledge with others, and together realize their dreams.
The most important thing is that our community can make money through it and some of them already started making money. It is a great platform for teachers and students.
We have taken another important initiative for our business women community. We have taken the initiative to sell our entrepreneurs' products through our social media platform and our website. It made them more powerful as we were losing our hope for the COVID 19 pandemic. SME’s are doing good now by using Technology and mobile data as broadband is not available in our rural area. We have developed a sustainable model for local women entrepreneurs because our girls and women are dependent on Facebook commerce. Now we have given them their own website and brand development opportunity through our marketplace.
Bangladesh is a developing country but for the COVID 19 we believe we have 10 years ahead in the field of technology.
Share your story (your narrative)
Hello, I’m Achia Nila. I was born and raised in a village and peri-urban area.
I got a good education. In my school, there were both boys and girls. So I never thought about gender issues. I was good at studying and I wanted to study computer engineering. I joined my University and on the first day, I was shocked. Unlike school and college, I was the only girl in the classroom. So I started looking for senior females in the entire university. There were two women, one had already quit and another was about to quit. In the entire country, there were hardly any women in the digital space. This is where my days of struggle started. People did not take women seriously at all. They did not think we can be good in something like coding.
During my second year, I applied for my first job. There I saw that women were only accepted for graphics. Hardcore coding was a complete ‘no-go’ zone for girls. I had to fight for my first job but I got it. I was again the only girl in the coding department. There were many challenges. Let’s not get into that, it will be a very long story. But in short, the more time I spent, I became more aware of the challenges women face. It broke my heart. Because it is not about judging women in a certain job. The entire society was judging our existence, our capacity, our dreams just based on one thing- our gender. I knew very clearly that I am not going to keep fighting just for my own personal acceptance. Coding is something I love, I enjoy. And there is nothing about being a man or woman that affects coding. This became a bigger vision for me. To bring more Bangladeshi women in technology. To empower women through technology. This is how Women in Digital was born.
In the year 2013 I started with a small group of 5 women. Today we have trained more than 7868 females in technology. More than 4591 are actively working. In the beginning, it was a challenge to convince the girls and their parents. Another challenge was, we needed women with a good education. So we could mostly work with girls from middle-class backgrounds. We all know that low-income families or rural areas need bigger help. This is why we started running training programs in the villages as well. Today, we have many success stories of women from different backgrounds. We have a woman who could not continue her higher studies because of the family’s poor financial condition. Today she is able to support her family. We have a rural girl from Mymensingh village, who now leads in that area.
There are many success stories like that.
Women in Digital today focuses on three areas.
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Women in Digital Agency: where women engineers develop IT product for international Clients mostly in Australia and USA market. Recently we developed a water billing software for our local govt.
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Women in Digital Tech School- This is where we actually provide computer training for girls to be ready for the job-market.
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Women in E-commerce- With this we are completely focusing on the rural women. Here we create an international market for their handicraft products through our social media and website. The entire team from craftswomen, photographers to digital coder are women.
With the help of the Spring program since 2018, we have been able to develop a financial model for the training center. Starting this February, we will have four Tech schools in different areas of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Ramgonj, Kurigram and Mymensingh which will run like permanent institutes. We have an online platform too. www.mashtor.com
Bangladesh is probably one of the best countries in South Asia to encourage women in the digital space. Because of government’s initiatives like Digital Bangladesh, we have the opportunity to reach even the most remote region, train the girls and also find them international jobs. There is a huge opportunity. I am proud of training 8590 women, but we have the potential for millions. Of course, there are challenges, it starts with the family, society, education system, exposure, the attitude of job providers, and much more. But we have already come a long way. From being the only girl in the class, to being able to see thousands of girls. Women in Digital is not only a dream, it is a reality and a platform for a better future for women and girls in this country.
Now,
I am Achia Nila founder, of Women In Digital - Empowerment through Technology. I am a Computer engineer. More than 16 years I have been working in the IT industry. I was working for different multinational companies and now I am running my own IT company with 35 women engineers.
I have served in some of the internationally recognized organizations such as Dell, Microsoft, HP, Epson, Colgate, HillsPet, J&J, HTC, HSBC, Vodafone, Sony, Unilever, Betfair and Nokia etc. As a local product I have successfully launched Maya apa Mobile application. My expatriates are IT product development (like, web, mobile app and game) and Product management, project management, team lead etc.
Beside my Tech business, I have joined as an international IT expert for an international agency. I am the first person in Bangladesh who was selected for this honorable position.
Recently I have joined the Women Who Code as a Country Director.
I have arranged the “National Hackathon for Women” 1st time in Bangladesh and so many tech competitions for women. My organization run an accelerator program for women named “Digital Innovation Challenge for Women (DICFW)”
In 2019 I have been selected for the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in the U.S. The International Visitor Leadership Program is designed to provide foreign leaders and scholars with the opportunity to meet American colleagues and become better acquainted with the United States, its culture, and its people. One of the program's major goals is to promote the development of friendly relations between the United States and other countries of the world. This is the top prestigious program from the United States Department.
http://womenindigital.net/project/testimonial/3
In 2020 I also received an Acumen fellowship.
1st women health mobile app developed by me. link: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-06/bangladesh-app-lets-women-speak-without-fear
Some other info:
Six indomitable women in Bangladesh: Success stories in STEM, Link: https://www.thedailystar.net/supplements/29th-anniversary-supplements/the-youth-the-era-digitalisation/news/six-indomitable-women-success-stories-stem-1870549
Ten Inspiring Bangladeshi Women Entrepreneurs, Link: https://cityalo.com/blog/ten-inspiring-bangladeshi-women-entrepreneurs
Joint Secretary: Bangladesh Women in Technology
Link: http://www.bwit-bd.com/khaledaachia.php
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
We want to share the following thing with you all.
The Inclusive Internet Index, commissioned by Facebook and conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, returns for its fourth year. The index provides a rigorous benchmark of national-level Internet inclusion in 100 countries across four categories: Availability, Affordability, Relevance and Readiness. This year’s index, which covers 91% of the world’s population, is published for a third year alongside the Value of the Internet Survey, which polled 4,953 respondents from 99 countries, to gauge perceptions on how Internet use affects people’s lives and livelihoods. This executive summary presents the index and survey highlights.
Key findings:
Internet access is increasing globally, but vast disparities remain and the rate of uptake is slowing in the hardest-to-reach areas.
Mobile data has been a game-changer for lower-income groups, but access is still too expensive.
Although narrow, the gender gap in access remains stubbornly wide, particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
The Internet is facilitating people’s management of their money and finances and their inclusion in the broader economy.
People are going online to prepare for the technology-intensive jobs of tomorrow.
Women in Digital is on this documentary and you can watch us after 6min 5sec. YouTube link: FaceBook
UNICEF has been making progress on us and it will be published on 8th July at The report will be presented at the 2020 GenderSmart Investing Summit. The presentation will aim to stimulate conversations and generate real investment interest by showcasing tangible opportunities that have a real impact on adolescent girls and young women on their journeys from education and employment, using sustainable market-based incentives.
Women In Digital Achieved
We have received 32 local and international awards and we have highlight some
“Impact Investment Award”, SPRING, UK.
“The BIZZ Awards 2019” UK
“Best Business Model Award” Business model, German
“BRAC Manthan Award”, Manthan, South Asia.
“Spark Entrepreneur”, Spark, YGap, Australia.
“Best Startup” in inspiring women Award from Bangladesh Brand Forum.
“YSSE, Women Of the Year, Business” Dhaka, Bangladesh
“Lokkhi Thanno” Best entrepreneur of the year, Lakshmipur, Chittagong, Bangladesh
“Best Entrepreneur of the year” Young, Bangladesh
Link: http://www.womenindigital.net/album/5
Worked with: Women in Digital worked with
Ministry of Post. Telecommunication & IT, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh
Bangladesh Metropolitan Police
Microsoft
EMK Center
USAID
UKAID
Australian AID
Nike Foundation
SPRING
CARE
Oxfam
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
British Council and many more
For more info please visit our website, www.womenindigital.net
5. Design ICT Road map for local government (ICT Ministry)
Development of White Paper for Post COVID-19 Action Plan on Technology and Innovation
The uncertainty around the unfolding COVID-19 crisis has left the world shocked and clueless. It has impacted every sphere of life and made us realize the importance of automation and internet-based solutions. In the Bangladeshi context, there are a few major areas that need immediate attention to sustain our economic growth. Our team consulted with sectoral experts and identified a few sectors which need to be enhanced through ICT based solutions. These sectors are:
Health Education
MSMEs
Char/Remote Areas
Health
Agriculture
Outsourcing
Digital Financial Services
NGO
Women
People with Disabilities
For more info please visit our website, http://www.womenindigital.net/
Facebook Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4xrEeahMA&feature=emb_title
Impact Story 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRqVNZNsC4w
We are on National TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PJSxG-_nc
We are on TV for National Hackathon for Women (1st time in South Asia) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GYoAsFP_KU
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomeninDigital.net
https://www.facebook.com/groups/666993196762453/
Your Final Proposal for challenge
yes
Good to see one of our friend who work in last 7 years with Girl's and ICT. To change our community Women In Digital can be role model of South Asia and other part of the world.
What you are doing for the employment and self-reliance of girls is really commendable.
Oh my god! I have read the full project and you have done very wonderful job for women in technology. Do you have any plans for India? Love to connect with you. Best wishes
I have seen you working hard for this for a long time and it has grown significantly. Keep it up.
Amazing work. Great project and the humble but effective and inspirational leadership to deliver it.
Thanks for connecting. You have a long and established history. I will reach out directly for tech support to Loop.
I know Achia personally for many years. A lady full of confidence in herself. She has a dynamic personality and hunger to create and change through her innovative ideas and immaculate ability to influence. She has been working on empowering women by enlightening them with IT, introducing them with digital technology. I am sure she loves doing what she is doing and I wish her all the best.
I have been working with Nila for several years, and I’m confidently admired her effort and passion. I strongly believe that she can make it happen.
I like the way you have run your project, its really remarkable. I have a suggestion for you, could you please make your project name short. As your organization name is Women in Digital- Empowerment through technology. I think you can keep that as your project name also.
Hi Achia, congratulations for the work aldready achieved!
Hello Achia,
Hope you doing well.
I want to know.
Is your project scallable to the global level?
If yes, from when you started, how many women outside your country have you successfully helped?
Thanks and wish you good luck.
Your agency is doing a great job in empowering women in Bangladesh.How does your agency assist or protect women victims of trafficking?
Absolutely a great project. Your passion and zeal is noteworthy. Please keep it up!
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Status labels added: Community feedback received, Expert feedback received
Status label removed: Expert feedback received
Well done Achia, excellent initiative. It is not clear how your agency is protecting women against trafficking
Moderation status changed: Closed comments
Moderation status changed: Clear
Hi Achia, I went over your very detailed project, and I really admire your complete engagement and passion for your work, you explained your ideas very nicely, and you almost covered all the aspects properly. I am inspired and impressed by the all the positive outcomes you have reached so far. Still, I believe you can give further clarifications to my few questions and recommendations I would like to give
-Having the ICT development index relatively below the average, as for 2017, it was ranked 147 in Bangladesh, mentioning that the individuals using internet is of only 15% as reported by the Wrld Bank three years ago, mostly your training programs, classes, workshops and applications heavily rely on internet supply, what are the possible solutions you have planned to reduce the gap?
-Additionally to my first question, I believe partnership with the ministry of Post and Telecommunication, with the IT Government, in terms of working together in a pre-stage action plan implementation, roadmap and frameworks regarding the ICT infrastructure needs would help get more access to internet
-My last comment is about the funding, since your trainings are totally free of charge as mentioned, so what if, after the women being trained and linked to the professional network, these can help finance the organization to allow more sustainability and keep other women the chances to join the network. Parts of their benefits can be dedicated to enhance the academia and ICT institutions as part of stakeholders chain, to provide more ICT facilies and internet and mobile access
-Lastly, I would like to express my real admiration for your story telling part, this was really the boosting engine of your hole results you reached today, keep believe in your power, and revieling those the women in your community, and at international level have in them!
This is a great initiative for Bangladeshi women in technology. We want this service in our 64 district.
Greetings
Let me congratulate you on your incredible idea! it is really inspiring keep it up
The project appears to be very broad. I would like to understand how you are tackling the digital knowledge levels for women in the rural areas. How is the digital penetration in the rural areas. Is the government doing something to improve this?
Hi Achia. Your initiative is phenomenal and very inspiring. How are you able to finance and sustain the initiative?
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
Hi @Achia,
I admire this project and there are many achievements already.
What I like:
- The fact that is focused on empowering females.
- Mentioning clear numbers which help us in visualizing the impact that you already doing.
- Freemium model.
- Choosing technology and finance as the main areas to empower women because technology opens the rest of the world to them.
Room for enhancement:
- The business model sounds like completely dependant on grants from the likes of Oxfam, etc. Would you be able to adapt a more sustainable approach?
- Beneficiaries take training, etc for free. How can they contribute? completely free solution build a culture based on RECEIVING help without GIVING in return which means you become dependant on the donor who might impose their own agenda.
- The project covers so many aspects. Don't you think that could spread WID efforts quite thin?
Good luck!
Amir
Status label added: Expert feedback received
Very good project, Could you please explain how women get mentoring support from you. How we can connect with you organization.
Oh my God! it's really a big project and you are working on so many things. How could you manage all those things?
You are working on so many things and nicely explain the project here. You have already received good feedback from your minister. This is a really good sign of your project.
But I have an observation, you didn't the SDG goals here. Do you follow any SDG goals? It will be better if you include those things on your project. It will be stronger side of your project.
I have seen your so many impacts on your project but how could you measure your impact. Wish you all the best for your project.
Hi Achia, you're the real MVP. This is so inspiring I can see that you done amazing works. Keep it up. Just a few suggestions, first is it is always great to make your project short and sweet. Mainly what's important is the numbers and impacts you have made. Then the other detailed information you can include it in a business plan or profile. Then I have a question on how you have managed to sustain this since you have been offering it for free? All the best and keep it up, hope you empower all the women in Bangladesh :)
Status label added: Submission completed
Status label added: Idea under jury review
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.