tl;dr - I worked with a group to develop a mobile, library-style truck that delivers laptops and internet access to rural Africa, detailed in this slideshow.

In March of 2021, I was presented with an incredibly unique and very cool opportunity. I had been a part of an out-of-school program called The Knowledge Society, and through this program, I was able to work with the United Nations on a problem they were trying to solve. 

The challenge presented to us by the United Nations was to empower women and girls in developing countries to thrive in developing nations. Specifically, they wanted us to focus on the three following guiding questions:

1. How can we enable more women and girls to access, create and influence technology by increasing digital skills and access to digital devices and the Internet by 2026?
2. How can we increase women’s employment in the digital economy by 2026?  
3. How can countries provide women and girls with equal opportunities to thrive in the digital economy by implementing policies that support female inclusion by 2026?

You can view the full challenge outline here. We had about a month to do research, develop a solution, and iteratively improve the solution.

In any case, I was very excited to begin working on the challenge. However, it would have been rather silly of me to attempt to complete this challenge on my own. Rather, I was part of a group of four, along with Ishaana Misra, Kai Kim-Suzuki, and Henry Huang. Ishaana, Kai, and I were all in the 8th grade during this project, and Henry was a junior in high school at the time. 

Although I had not worked with Henry or Kai in the past, I had worked with Ishaana and knew her rather well. Henry, Kai, and I became fast friends, though, and before long the four of us were an incredibly, incredibly well oiled machine. 

We chose to focus on the first guiding question, “How can we enable more women and girls to access, create and influence technology by increasing digital skills and access to digital devices and the Internet by 2026,” and began the research portion of this project. We chose to use Ghana as proof-of-concept/staging ground for this project, based on a combination of statistics, including its internet penetration rate, its Human Development Index (HDI), and the percentage of women that graduate secondary school in the country. We found that, relative to other developing countries, Ghana was among the highest in each of those categories, and therefore there was a sufficient baseline of education and quality of life for us to pursue finding a solution. Additionally, we were able to find lots of data on Ghana with relative ease, which was very promising, as the more data we could find, the better.  Data we found can be found here.

Next, our group decided whether or not we wanted to focus on providing access to hardware or develop software to teach women how to use technology to the fullest. We developed a chart using the MECE (mutually-exclusive and collectively exhaustive) framework, which can be found here. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that there are already a plethora of free educational content online, and that providing women with the means to get online was far more important. 

We knew that simply handing every woman in Ghana a computer would not be very cost effective at all. Instead, we decided to go library-style, and enable local Ghanaians to check out a computer in the morning and return it in the afternoon. Our full solution can be seen in the below slideshow, which can be viewed in fullscreen here. Ultimately, my group produced one of the top two slideshows in the program, and we are very proud of the end result.

Takeaways:

1. This challenge really cemented how important feedback and iteration is. My group frequently spoke with as many people as we could, because we felt as though multiple perspectives were extremely important. Oftentimes, when we would present our work to others, they could provide valuable feedback and point out gaps that we had not noticed. Outside perspective was something they sought out, and by using that perspective, we could make our solution better after each round of feedback. I’m very confident that we would not have had nearly as much success if we had not gotten torrents of feedback throughout the challenge. 

2. When doing a group project, it's very important for everyone to communicate clearly and often. This leads to a very cohesive experience and eliminates any stress that might arrive between group members. Additionally, communicating well can help everyone figure out their own role within the group and how they can use their specific talents to help the group as a whole. Ishaana was a wonderful project manager, Kai did a lot of research, I worked on the slides, and Henry was great at reaching out to people who could help us gain perspective and knowledge. It’s important to note that although we each had our strengths, we all did a little bit of everything and were always there to help each other out.