I am back home from Kenya but still have some inspiring stories to share with you. Today I’m introducing you to Rahma who is a young woman who has huge aspirations to become a software engineer and was the motto “If it is your passion, you can do it”.

While in Kenya, our group partnered with The Youth Banner to meet with young women in the communities where they operate. One of the days included a session at their offices and the focus group included girls from 3 different schools from the local area. These young women took time out of their summer vacation (and came in their school uniforms!) to participate and give us feedback on the Intel® She Will Connect – My Digital Learning platform.

This learning platform is a break-through way to teach digital literacy. It involves a game-like setting and includes quests, missions and challenges. These are all set up with a dialog with characters who guide them through learning concepts of digital citizenship and online safety. With the game-like aspect, the students are engaged in the stories of the program characters and developing their own character to the highest level. This platform will become a place for girls and women to learn how to engage safely online and know how to access any information they need to achieve their dreams.

One thing that was unique on this particular day was that we had teachers come and learn about the platform as well. Getting teachers excited about the learning platform is pivotal as they can encourage their students to start their digital journeys and become ambassadors for the learning platform.

The students took these sessions very seriously. Looking around the room we saw many of them taking notes and using these notes later in the game when they came to the end of each challenge.

While talking with Rahma later in the afternoon, we learned that her parents are discouraging her from going into software engineering because they would rather have her go into medicine like her siblings. At university, the tuition is structured so that certain majors are more expensive. Engineering is more expensive than medicine which is one reason her parents are encouraging medicine over engineering. Her mentality is that “If it is your passion, you can do it” and software engineering is her passion so she will find a way to make it happen.

We had an amazing and engaging group of young women this day, with goals for being lawyers, surgeons, engineers and other technological careers we can expect to see great things come from this group.