Ahead of our virtual fundraiser for Black women, I wanted to share an inspiring story with you—a testament to the incredible impact your support is having on the lives of Black women in STEM.
Meet Choukouriyah, a Master's student in Information Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.
Choukouriyah joined Black Sisters in STEM in 2020 from Benin as a member of our talent accelerator program, Our Girls, Our Future. Coming into Black SiS, she had studied Accounting and Audit Management, and Software Engineering – without practical Python experience.
After going through our intensive 3 month training in Python programming, complete with practical projects, volunteer service hours, and hundreds of learning hours, Choukouriyah got a job at Frontend Developer at Chapitre Bénin de l'Internet Society (ISOC BENIN), where she used her Python skills to help make the internet open and accessible to all.
Since then, she has gone on to work on research projects that investigate the potential of AI to help detect flood patterns in satellite images. She was also selected by Carnegie Mellon University to attend and present alongside the Dean of the College of Engineering Bill Sanders, to attend a UN briefing as part of the 78th United Nations General Assembly.
Choukouriyah reflects on her journey, saying, "OGOF 2020 has been the best gift I have had so far, and I am proud of this achievement. Today, if I can stand in front of an audience and speak with confidence, it is thanks to OGOF. If I am comfortable with writing my summary or even with Python programming, it’s still them.”
Choukouriyah’s story is just one of many stories we see here at Black Sisters in STEM. Black women constitute only 2% of STEM jobs globally. Black SiS is solving this problem by helping Black college women breaking into tech share, learn, and get hired. We want to make sure that Choukouriya’s story is the norm for Black women in STEM all around the world. Thank you for your continued support for more Black women in STEM like her.
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