Ensuring social development and community empowerment is an objective of our Strategic Action Plan where we strongly emphasize on community engagement. Within this regard, to inspire young girls in to the areas of Technology, we have partnered with Women in Tech Maldives to initiate the program, “Girl Powered 2021”. The program was officially commenced on 8th November 2021, with the aim of training and educating young girls on tech solutions and how it interfaces with our lives in creating smart cities and smart people.

The Girl Powered 2021 program targeted for girls from grade 6 and 7 in Hulhumalé, will be continued until 6th December 2021. The program is dispersed into 8 online sessions of about 1-2 hours each. The girls will be learning digital content creation using Block coding and Machine Learning concepts. Through this, the participants will be developing their creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

The program will also comprehend sessions that teach and assist girls to create a game or interactive project that demonstrate a real-world use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The participants will be applying their knowledge gained during the program to create a solution around themes related to Clean Tech, Smart Cities, etc.…

At the end of the program, a final showcase event will be held featuring the student’s creations around the theme – Building a Smart City. During the event, the girls will be showcasing their final project’s masterpiece created from their learning experiences of the program. This event is aimed at enhancing the participants confidence and enriching their interest in the skills they learnt throughout the program.

This CSR initiative of HDC is aimed at ensuring high participation and leadership of women in the (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) STEM field. Through this program, we hope to encourage more girls to choose STEM subjects for their higher education and help minimize the gender gap that exists in the field.
The project will uplift the girls to boost their self-confidence and realize their potential in excelling in the field. We highly anticipate on encouraging the young generation to come up with creative and smart solutions for everyday problems while instilling community values, towards creating smarter cities.