On August 13, 14, and 15, 2021, the All Girls Code team ran a summer program called Techsplore, to train and introduce young girls to the applications of coding and programming. All Girls Code is an award-winning, student-led initiative, based at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at AUB, that has welcomed more than 600 young girls from different regions in Lebanon to its free-of-charge STEM programs since its inception in 2017.
During the program, LebNet’s Women in Tech (WiT) and Early in Career (EIC) communities gave two virtual workshops covering CV writing and landing internships in the tech field for young girls in Beirut. The sessions were led by Aya Mouallem, WiT Outreach Program Lead, Electrical Engineering PhD Student at Stanford University, and co-founder of All Girls Code, and by Yara Akiki, EIC Community Outreach Program Lead and Software Engineer at Robinhood. The workshops covered the top programming skills sought after today and the common mistakes of CV writing.
Despite the power outage crisis in Lebanon, 106 girls attended the workshops proving yet again their extreme focus on education and a better future.
“When I signed up for AGC, I didn’t know that you could learn so much in three days. We were introduced to many successful women from the MENA who are paving the way for other women in STEM. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to talk to co-founder and Stanford scholar Aya Mouallem as well as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, Yara Akiki,” said Halla Daas, one of the participants in the program. “They guided us through CV writing, landing internships, and working or doing research during undergrad. The session was beneficial like no other. I would definitely come back next year to meet other driven like-minded girls. Thank you AGC!”
LebNet strongly believes in the importance of supporting the Lebanese youth back home and especially these high school girls who demonstrated great technical knowledge and a lot of ambition for building sustainable futures in tech. We look forward to continued partnerships and collaborations on programs that empower and benefit our Lebanese youth.
“This is my first year volunteering with All Girls Code from abroad. As an AUB student, I was fortunate enough to co-found and lead this initiative for 4 years with a bunch of AUB students, and it means the world to me to see AGC continue to flourish and empower more girls with different socio-economic backgrounds, especially through a collaboration with LebNet,” said Mouallem. “I was very impressed with the calibre of questions I received during the workshops, and I’m truly hoping that these young girls maintain their strong drive to persist through the current hardships in Lebanon, and that they get a fair chance to follow their ambitions in tech back home.”
