The Meera Kaul Foundation addresses gender bias and funds organizations led by women to help “eradicate inequality through education, programs, seminars and conferences.” Check out their post excerpted below and on Entrepreneur Middle East, about hackathons for women: a coding and computer science movement that's sweeping the world to foster cutting edge ideas and collaboration and help women innovators, developers, tech geeks and entrepreneurs form connections and pursue goals that can change the world.
entrepreneur.com - In a world where the rate of female computer science graduates is declining at an alarming rate, the number of women enrolling in technical courses at universities has also seen a dramatic decline—which further impacts the motivation of women already involved in STEM vocations. The end result is a microscopic pipeline of women in STEM careers, primarily computing and engineering. While opportunities in these vocations have evolved, women’s involvement in these domains has plummeted. This is not a pretty equation, both from the perspective of the social and economic status of women, and also from the standpoint of the progress and development of communities, as women are known to be active contributors to the capacity building of other women and their communities.
When I promote hackathons for women, I invariably get asked why such an inclusive program should exist. Our nonprofit organization, the Meera Kaul Foundation, has a program called Women in STEM, whose primary mission is to enable women to educate and build skills to enable careers in highly paid jobs of STEM. Holding hackathons all around the world has been an initiative that we have undertaken the world over, and thus proliferate our mission into regions that need our support the most.
Read more about the Meera Kaul Foundation, Women in STEM, hackathons, and the culture of bias and stereotype women in tech still face here. The second annual Women in STEM Hackathon in Dubai will be held February 19 through 20, welcoming women from across the MENA region.