TechGirls Return to TechChange

TechGirls Sara and Sarra with Samita and TechChange souveniers

Last Friday, TechGirls returned to the TechChange headquarters. For the last few years, TechChange has had the privilege of hosting TechGirls at our headquarters for their Job Shadow Day.

TechGirls is a selective exchange program that encourages and supports the desire of Middle Eastern and North African teenage girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). During the 3 week long exchange program, the girls (ranging from ages 15 – 17) travel around the U.S. getting a taste of the various careers one can have in STEM. One of the ways they experience a STEM career in the U.S. is by spending a day at a tech company during Job Shadow Day.

This year, Sara Chikhi from Algeria, and Sarra Bouchkati from Tunisia arrived at TechChange to learn how a day looks like at an edtech social enterprise. Sara and Sarra aspire to have a career in astrophysics and aerospace respectively.

After an introduction to TechChange, we dove right in to give the TechGirls hands-on experience with each of our team. The girls were very curious about TechChange’s work and were very excited to learn more.

Sara tries her hand on creating an asset and animating it.

Check out what the gif they animated!

Then the TechGirls transitioned on to hear what our Tech Fellows were working on this summer.

NIthya, You Jin, and Ellie shared the various projects they were working on with the TechGirls.

The TechChange experience is incomplete without a team lunch at our nearby Ethiopian restaurant, so we all went to get some Ethiopian food for lunch!

After lunch, Delanie and Emily showed the TechGirls the various TechChange projects from the past and showed them how they create a course on articulate. The girls then created a short course about themselves! Check it out!

 

To sum up her experience, Sarra from Tunisia said:

“Be confident , always be eager to learn and search, and team work: these are one of the most valuable lessons that I have learned today at TechChange aside to learning about animation process, graphic design, and meeting with the tech, marketing and content teams. The collaboration between the teams portrays the company’s philosophy of learning from one another and giving each employee the chance to shine and sharpen their skills.”

Always a pleasure to have you here TechGirls, thanks for joining us!