AKIPRESS.COM - UNICEF Kyrgyzstan has announcd Dinara Ruslan as the champion supporter of the “Girls in Science” (STEM) programme on the International Girls in ICT Day. She will be joining Dr. Asel Sartbaeva, UNICEF’s Goodwill Ambassador of the “Girls in Science” Programme.

Ms. Dinara Ruslan is the Founder and CEO of IT companies “Codify”; the Academy of Programming and Design and CodifyLab which develops IT products for companies in Singapore, Australia and Europe. She is also a Board Member of the Kyrgyz Association of Software and Services Developers and Board member of the Association of Creative Industries.

“Poverty, gender discrimination, gender stereotypes, and digital illiteracy are preventing girls and women from benefiting from digital technologies and leave us behind as the global workforce increasingly uses digital tools and other technologies. As a woman leader, I focus on women engagement in IT to ensure we, women, and girls, are not excluded” said Ms. Dinara Ruslan who is among the first women to study and develop her career in ICT in Kyrgyzstan.

UNICEF launched the “Girls in Science” programme in 2020 to empower girls from new settlements and rural areas so they can excel in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and to have career opportunities in these fields. Since the launch of the programme, almost 400 schoolgirls are participating in extra classes for republican test preparation to be enrolled in science and IT faculties after high school. The overall target of the “Girls in Science” programme is to reach 500 high school girls and to prepare them as peer educators and be role models for younger girls in their communities, potentially reaching and inspiring hundreds of thousands of girls as active and effective agents of change.

“We are very pleased that Dinara Ruslan is championing girls in science programme,” commented Christine Jaulmes, UNICEF Representative. “She is a role model who can inspire many young girls and give them the confidence to have high ambition in the area of science, technology and engineering.”

This year’s celebration of the International Girls in ICT Day will include a motivational session by Ms Dinara Ruslan for a group of 100 adolescent girls followed by an interactive Q&A session at the Kyrgyz State Technical University.