14. Can Coding Change the Future of Afghanistan's Women? A Conversation With Fereshteh Forough

We often talk about the many different ways in which to empower girls and women around the world: more education, better health, better nutrition; voting rights. But what if the future of women could be changed by something as technical as coding or computer programming? This is exactly the solution that this episode's guest, Fereshteh Forough, came up with as she struggled with her own experiences of growing up as an Afghani refugee in Iran. When Fereshteh became an accidental and somewhat reluctant computer science student, she came to realize that the key to empowering Afghani women perhaps lay in technology, helping them learn and become financially independent. Through her work and her organization Code to Inspire, Fereshteh is an inspiration and global ambassador for girls and women all over the world. She has been a TED speaker; a Clinton Global Initiative speaker; and been named a "revolutionary" by Marie Claire magazine in their 2016 first-ever Young Women's Honors.

Fereshteh earned her Bachelor's in Computer Science and later her Master’s from Technical University of Berlin in Germany. She taught as a professor at the Computer Science faculty of Herat University for almost three years and in 2015 founded the first coding school for girls in Herat. 

Episode Themes:

• Fereshteh's early experiences of being a refugee and how her family lost--and eventually regained--access to education
• Fereshteh's accidental journey of studying computer science in Afghanistan and as an international student in Germany, and how studying abroad influenced her thinking and her work
• Why and how coding and computer programming can empower women around the world
• The role of Bitcoin and crypto currency in providing financial freedom for women and ensuring digital citizenship
• The important lessons Fereshteh has learned In the seven years since she founded Code to Inspire, and how the journey has affected her personally and professionally, and especially as a woman
• Fereshteh's "wish-list" for how funders and others can support Code to Inspire

Resources from this episode:

Fereshteh's 2013 TED talk

Donate to and support Code to Inspire

Connect with Fereshteh: Twitter, LinkedIn

Girls Who Code

Other Resources:

My book:  America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility

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