This is a really nice story that I spotted on The Guardian. The Senegalese government is investing heavily in providing STEM learning opportunities for women, including coding clubs that are providing practical solutions to local problems. Applications include creating a digital database of land title deeds to protect local property rights, book exchange programs, health trackers and vaccine reminders.
Lots of really cool ideas featured in this piece, and it's great to see a government recognising that coding has the potential to be at the vanguard for social change. There's also an interesting angle on the conflict between engaging with first world tech structures and developing their own. Although Senegal is one of the most politically and economically stable of the African nations, they still lose a lot of young workers to the West where the perception is that the opportunities are greater.
"“Above all, I want to show children and young people that in order to succeed you don’t need to leave the country... You can stay here in Senegal and do well. This is a big issue for us – people leave to try to make it, but you can stay and be happy and successful. I don’t want to say that the next Mark Zuckerberg or head of Google will come from Senegal – rather, we can create our own tools that can be exported globally.”
What do you guys think? Have you seen any other good examples of STEM initiatives being utilised for social progress in this way? What other countries that don't necessarily have access to first world resources and infrastructures are doing really good things with STEM and coding initiatives?