progressing?
interactive platform that promotes and
supports women's empowerment through
videos, instructional programs, and
blogs. Through Women's Annex, we have
already established 12 IT centres: 10 are
located in high schools, and two are for
women studying in universities, or who are
independent bloggers or filmmakers. We
have a network of 40,000 students, with
5,000 of them registered on our platform
so they can benefit from our free services
in the schools like workshops, micro
scholarships and job opportunities.
challenges within the community
when you established citadel
software company, how do
women create opportunities for
themselves when they are up
against challenges?
from the families, security issues, and the
economic situation. Whether or not they
will allow their daughters to do business
still depends on the society and family
traditions. Most businesswomen depend
on the men in their home to be successful
and by looking at the last 10 years in
Afghanistan, we can see an improvement
for Afghan women in business, politics and
education. We believe in women's abilities.
They can do a lot for themselves and their
country by taking part in social activities
and business.
afghanistan are higher than most
other countries and although the
situation is slowly improving, how
will connecting women via the
internet contribute towards this
progression?
perform very well on social and digital
media. They can establish their own
software and digital media companies and
help their husbands and brothers grow
their businesses within their social and
cultural requirements.
university degree for women in
afghanistan? what is the Job
market like for them and do they
have access to the corporate
market?
and open to the women who can pass
the Konkor Exams. There are a few job
opportunities for women in governments,
NGO, and private sectors but most of
the families prefer that their girls work
in schools as a teacher. This job is more
accepted by their families. Although
there are some women working for the
government, and others who started their
own business, yet most of them work
through the men in their families.
milestones that your business has
achieved over the past five years,
and what do you anticipate over
the next five years?
of NYC and developed the Examer,
an Interactive and Educational Social
Networking platform with a Micro
Scholarship Payment System, to be
countries. In the next five years, we are
looking to revolutionise the way women and
children live in developing countries in Asia,
Africa and South America through education,
social media and economic empowerment.
In 2014, the US will begin to withdraw forces
from Afghanistan, creating a political risk.
However, we feel comfortable enough with
our online platform to minimise this risk.
networks available to women in
most parts of the world, are there
any women's business networks in
afghanistan?
for women working in handcraft or agriculture.
More recently, some women have worked
on creating a new network for women in
business. We hope that it will include other
sectors.
success? how is your business
different from others in your area
of expertise?
It's very important for us to build the local
talent, and give students in Afghanistan
and other developing countries the tools
to express their innovative ideas. We are
helping young Afghans but the rest of
the world can benefit from Afghanistan's
youth, creativity and growth.
What we do is in full respect of local
traditions to empower females and
develop professional skills to generate
revenue to support their families.
Women can work online and stay at
their home and we have the best
platforms and business model to
share the revenue with the users of
the Women's Annex platform.