A non-profit organisation Code To Inspire founded by an Afghan bitcoin enthusiast Fereshteh Forough has received Google RISE Award. The project is focused on teaching young women the basics of programming.
Promoting digital currency is one of the four objectives of the school, alongside with educational enrichment, gender equality and “learning by doing” (during the period of their learning, the students should give a technological solution to a problem they find within their own community). Bitcoin is the best way to pay for the work of female Afghan code writers, claims Forough.
“Cryptocurrency can be a great alternative which empowers unbanked populations in underserved communities. In places where it is taboo for women to even step out the door, Bitcoin allows them to more fully participate in the world. In a society that lacks banks, blockchain technology like Bitcoin offers a secure, transparent way to store value. It reduces operation costs and counters money laundering. But most importantly, it allows women to have a chance to participate in the economy on their own terms,” states the founder of the school as quoted by Forbes.
The sum of the award is $25,000, reads a post in the corporate blog by the project co-founder John Lilic. This is the maximum amount that can be received through the Google programme. Apart from the money, the company receives access to the online community on Google+, contacts with other recipients of the award and a year’s support of Google experts and volunteers in what concerns technical and organisational development.
“With Google’s support we will be able to continue our efforts teaching these young women how to code and with those skills they can empower themselves and their communities,” claimed Forough.
More than 20 other organisations have become RISE awardees together with CTI. The award is intended for non-profit educational organisations in computer science for students under the university level. The program is primarily focused on women and minorities, i.e. on groups that can be educationally underserved.
“Our RISE Awardees make up a community of passionate and vibrant educators and advocates; they are change makers that engage, educate, and excite students about computing through extracurricular outreach,” noted Nicky Rigg, Google’s RISE Awards Program Manager.
The opportunity to work through the internet is priceless in a society where women still can’t go where they want and have a much shorter list of options than men when choosing a job, thinks Fereshteh Forough. Creating websites and applications for clients, CTI alumnae will be able to apply their creativity and get higher than average income.
As reported by CoinFox earlier, Code To Inspire works in the province of Herat and provides a year’s program for 50 students aged from 15 to 25. The school has already been sponsored by several cryptocurrency-related organizations, such as the online retailer Overstock and blockchain companies BitFury and ConsenSys.
Andrew Levich
