KEEPING BUSY! What TechGirls do after the program

Nourhan has always been interested in science, and as a high school student in Cairo, her passion for STEM and physics was encouraged. Nourhan, came to TechGirls in 2015 as a young, inexperienced yet driven, teenager with a love for all things science and the ability to make everyone smile. Her passion for STEM, and getting others interested in STEM, was obvious from the very beginning. For her follow-on project, Nourhan and classmate and co-TechGirl, Nada, taught Java programming at school and held technology workshops for their communities.

Now 2 years later, and she has already accomplished so much and grown into an amazing young woman. Nourhan just finished her first year at Nile University where she is a computer engineer major, but that wasn’t enough to keep her busy.

In August, 2016, Nourhan traveled to Bengaluru, India with Asian Science Camp, where she participated in plenary sessions, discussions, poster presentations, and met multiple Nobel Laureates, including Dr. J. Georg Bednorz and Dr. Takaaki Kajita who both won the Nobel prize in Physics.

Nourhan was also part of a team who created a ‘smart glove’ which translates sign language into spoken/written language. They are currently working to improve it. The glove won 1st place in computing category at Blast Off Science Fair,2nd place at Intel ISEF Egypt, and selected at the Google Science Fair as a finalist for the Community Impact Award – Africa/Arab region.

Eventually, Nourhan wants to be nuclear physicist and create electric controlled nuclear reactors. Nourhan will continue to amaze and inspire us as she paves the way for future women engineers.

 TechGirls is an international exchange program designed to inspire and empower girls from the Middle East and North Africa to pursue deeper level of training in technology through hands-on skills development.  The TechGirls program builds on the U.S. global commitment to advance the rights of women and girls around the world. This is a program of the U.S. Department of State, administered by Legacy International.