Digital Citizen Fund, Inc.

Summary of Campaign:
Your generous donation will help the Afghan Robotics Girls, their families, and DCF staff escape their dangerous current situation and resettle safely in a new country. Thank you so much for your support and care.

What we hope to fund with your kind support:
+ Charter flight to immediately leave Afghanistan 
+ Clothing and resources to return to school
+ Resettlement into a new country 


Background:
The Afghan Girls Robotics Team  aka the "Afghan Dreamers" made headlines in 2017 when they came to Washington for an international competition just a few blocks from the White House. Most members of the team were born after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, symbolizing a new Afghanistan where girls were free to go to school and women were getting at least some opportunities that had been long denied. But with the Taliban back, the future of these girls — some of them now young women — has turned precarious. We need your support to get the rest of the girls and their families out of Afghanistan as well as the Digital Citizen Fund (DCF) staff who supports the girls. Your generous donation will help the girls, their families, and DCF staff escape their dangerous current situation and resettle safely in a new country. 


More details about their current situation here and below.

More links below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58286398

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/19/afghanistan-girls-robotics-team-fleeing-to-canada/?variant=116ae929826d1fd3

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/19/world/taliban-afghanistan-news/afghanistan-girls-robotics-team

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/asia/afghanistan-girls-robotics-visas-trump.html


The Digital Citizen Fund (DCF's) mission is to increase women's participation and advancement in the workplace. This is done through the provision of education, training, and support. By creating new pathways to digital literacy and new jobs, the DCF team is transforming societies and helping women take control of their careers and futures. So far, DCF has provided training in entrepreneurship, coding, robotics, and gaming for almost 16,000 students. DCF's goals is to empower women with the technology-based education that allows them to improve lives within their own cities and villages while simultaneously making an impact on the wider world.  Digital Citizen Fund is an IRS 501c3 tax-exempt organization. Your contributions are tax-deductible. 
 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58286398

Why We Need Your Help

The Afghan Girls Robotics Team is excited to participate in the FIRST® Robotics Competition, a unique sport where every kid who plays can "turn pro."

The FIRST Robotics Competition allows high-school students from around the world to compete in robotics sports, building relationships and learning the power of teamwork. Working together with limited resources and strict guidelines, teams design, build and program industrial-sized robots to play a difficult field game against like-minded competitors. Our team will raise funds, design our brand and work together to compete against teams from around the world.

The official season for the FIRST Robotics Competition starts in early January with a kickoff ceremony. Our team will have limited time to create our robot. We will compete in district and regional competitions and the teams that qualify will compete in the FIRST Championship, which takes place in April.



In addition to the $5,000-$6,000 required for the robot kit and event participation, our team will have to travel to the United States and stay for 4 months to complete our project and compete. As a team, we are assuming all costs as a group. While FIRST offers many fundraising tools and grants , this trip will cost around $40,000 ,but we are so hopeful for your support to raise even $15,000. For any donation over $2000, we will put your name or logo on our robot, and share you as a sponsor on all media and publications. Every donation will receive a tax receipt email from the PayPal Giving Fund.


Who We Are


We are the Afghan Girls Robotics Team - a group of 12 girls determined to show the world the potential of young women in Afghanistan. Despite countless challenges and twice being denied visas for travel, our team competed last year in Washington, DC for the FIRST Global Robotics Competition. We are a symbol of the resilience and persistence of thousands of young women and girls in countries throughout the world who deserve the chance to succeed. Because of our participation at the competition, we have been entered into the official Congressional Record, making our journey to compete at the First Global Challenge a part of American history.

Women in Afghanistan face many dangers and challenges when pursuing education and success. We believe we have brought hope, happiness, unity and a sense of pride to all Afghans. We are proving that all women have the power to make a tremendous impact on society if given the opportunity.

Every time we participate in a robotics competition, we achieve a victory – a vision of hope for a country that for centuries has ignored women's abilities in science and other industries. We have met with President Ghani, Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah, Former President Karzai, ministers, parliament representatives and many more influential members of Afghan leadership and seek to prove to our leaders that we are indeed a proud representation of the future of our country.

 

 

Where We Came From

 

In January of 2017, the Digital Citizen Fund started providing a STEM program to girls. Starting with a group of 7 students, they trained us in robotics and brought us to the FIRST Global Challenge. Our original group has grown to 12 members, but our goals and dreams remain unchanged. We are learning and implementing our talents and skills in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. We are the first steps of the Afghan culture marching toward a bright future as a force in the STEM conversations of the world.


Having competed in Washington DC, Canada, Mexico and Estonia, we have proven that our goals are reachable, and success is within our grasp. We can achieve anything when we work together as team. Men vastly outnumber women in STEM jobs all over the world, but we have the potential truly to change these odds.



What We Have Already Accomplished
 

-       Received an award in Humanity in AI by Inspire Mind in World Summit AI

-       Won the silver medal for Courage Achievement in First Global Challenge in Washington, DC

-       Received the Permission to Dream award at the Raw Film Festival

-       Won the Conrad Innovation Challenge at the Raw Film Festival

-       Won the Rookie All Start in District Championship in Canada

-       Won the Entrepreneur Challenge in the biggest Robotics Festival in Europe in Estonia.

·      1st - Afghanistan

·      2nd - Poland

·      3rd - Estonia

-       Won the FIRST Rookie Inspiration at the World Championship in Detroit, MI

-       Won the Entrepreneur Challenge in the RoboRave in New York

-       Won the Safety Award in FIRST Global in Mexico

-       Won The Asia Game Changer Award in New York.

Self-driving cars, the internet of things, and machine learning algorithms.
 
In order to compete and prosper in the 21st century, countries must be able to access and harness the groundbreaking technologies that are transforming our world.

But there’s a real danger that large parts of the globe will be left behind. The very technologies that can improve our lives also threaten to exacerbate inequalities and perpetuate dangerous biases. And unless the benefits of Artificial intelligence (AI) are distributed equally, it may widen the gap between world’s richest and poorest communities.

We are going to make sure that doesn’t happen.

We’re raising money to build a high school of science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) in Afghanistan to raise the next generation of global tech leaders, led by Sarah Porter & Roya Mahboob.

SaRoya School 3 year objectives:

1) Construction of the high-school’s building 

 
2) Equip the building with internet access and technology equipment appropriate for instruction 


3) Hire qualified teachers and reputable administrators 


4) Enroll 800 students in the first year of operation 


5) Create partnerships with top technology schools in the US. 


6) Expand capacity and begin plans for a University

We really need your help!
You can play a role in narrowing the global wealth gap, strengthening social mobility, and mitigating racial and gender inequalities.


We need all the help we can get. Here’s how we’ll express our gratitude to larger donors:

Founding Donors: Over $50,000
- 2 free VIP passes to World Summit AI
- You can name one classroom at the Saroya Institute (name subject to review)
- We’ll thank you on stage at World Summit AI and in our press release
- Your name and/or logo will be placed on the Ada-AI website
- Your name will be listed in the school lobby on a large plaque

$20,000 – $49,9999
- 2 free standard passes to World Summit AI
- We’ll thank you on stage at World Summit AI and in our press release
- Your name and/or logo will be placed on the Ada-AI website
- Your name will be listed in the school lobby on a large plaque
 
$5,000 – $19,999
- We’ll thank you on stage at World Summit AI and in our press release
- Your name will be placed on the Ada-AI website
- Your name will be listed in the school lobby

$1,000 – $4,999
- Your name will be placed on the Ada-AI website
- Your name will be listed in the school lobby

What your donation could do:

$100 provides 50 students with pens and notebooks.

$1,000 buys laptops for 6 students.

$50,000 builds and equips an entire classroom.

Please donate now. You'll be changing lives of struggle and danger to lives of prosperity.

Empowering Youth in Afghanistan

The leaders of this project are Roya Mahboob and Sarah Porter. Their inspiration for this initiative emerged from their involvement with Afghanistan’s all-girl Robotics Team, who has won tech and robotics competitions around the world. Mahboob’s non-profit Digital Citizen Fund founded the team and has been one of their most important sponsors. Porter and her company InspiredMinds brought the team to the stage of World Summit AI in Amsterdam.  These girls were a symbol of the resilience and persistence of so many like them. They inspired thousands of young girls and won the hearts of people around the world. We can make this happen for thousands more.




About Roya Mahboob

Roya is an Afghan entrepreneur and businesswoman and one of the first female CEOs in Afghanistan. She founded and serves as CEO of the Afghan Citadel Software Company, a software development company based in Herat, Afghanistan. She is also the co-founder and CEO of Digital Citizen Fund, a non-profit organization based in New York that helps girls and women in developing countries gain access to technology. In 2013, Roya was named one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People In The World for her work building internet classrooms in high schools in Afghanistan.

About  Sarah Porter

Sarah has launched 22 tech and science products in 12 countries since 1996. She is the founder of Ada-AI, a global not-profit that advocates for inclusive and representative AI, and InspiredMinds, a group of science and tech strategists behind World Summit AI who supported the Afghan Robotics team in the wake of the Trump travel ban. Sarah is a regular keynote speaker on start-ups and women in business, an ambassador for the Royal Marsden, where she champions the use of AI tech in oncology advances, and a humanitarian first-response medic.

About Ada-AI


Ada-AI is non-profit organization working to ensure that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies are developed and implemented in ways that are inclusive and equitable.

Our goal is to foster greater participation and representation in AI so that the technologies we create work for all of us.

About Digital Citizen Fund

The Digital Citizen Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in New York City. The Digital Citizen Fund helps girls and women in developing countries gain access to technology, virtually connect with others across the world, and obtain necessary skills to succeed in today’s expanding global market.