Afghan technology activist blazing trails for girls
Roya Mahboob got the tech bug when she walked into an internet café at age 16.
“I know it wasn’t appropriate for girls to go to the internet café,” said Mahboob, whose hometown is Herat, Afghanistan.
But listening to her brothers and cousins talk about it piqued her interest.
There, seated at a computer, the world of technology, communication and information opened up.
“I was really fascinated,” recalled Mahboob, now 30.
So she followed her passion, eventually blazing trails as Afghanistan’s first female tech CEO, despite the barriers and risks of her patriarchal, impoverished and warravaged homeland.
Mahboob is one of 10 luminaries McMaster University is celebrating with honorary degrees.
They will be recognized during upcoming spring convocation ceremonies for contributions to humanity and the environment in science, the arts and journalism.
This will be Mahboob’s first honorary degree — an engineering distinction to be officially awarded June 15.
“I was so happy and surprised,” she said.
Since becoming CEO of the Afghan Citadel Software Company, Mahboob has led efforts to improve digital literacy for women and children in developing countries.
She’s now CEO and president of Digital Citizen Fund, Digital Citizen Brew and EdyEdy, which is focused on that mission.
In 2013, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world for building internet classrooms in Afghanistan.
But the road to success hasn’t been easy. When she got started, technology was new for everyone in her homeland, Mahmood said.
The male-dominated world of tech and business was another thing. Her firm had trouble securing financing and business partners. There were also death threats.
“It was getting very difficult for us because we had to deal with all the corruption; we had to deal with all the attitudes of men,” Mahmood said over the phone from New York City, where she’s now based.
Though the extremist Taliban hasn’t been in power for more than a decade, Afghanistan still has much ground to cover when it comes to women’s rights.
For instance, women and girls fleeing arranged marriages and domestic violence have been thrown in jail for running away from their families, Human Rights Watch notes.
In late 2015, the country’s human rights commission reported on police-conducted “virginity examinations” for grounds of “morality crimes.”
Last year, members of parliament continued to oppose legislation that regulates the minimum age for marriage, punishment for domestic assault and provision of women’s shelters.
Mahboob still spends time in Afghanistan, where she helped organize the country’s first all-girls robotic team, Afghan Dreamers.
The team, which has visited a robotics event at McMaster, made headlines last year when the teens had trouble securing visas to attend a competition in the United States. They eventually made it and have since joined an Oakville high school girls team at robotics events in Toronto and North Bay.
Their solar-powered prototype aims to help small-scale farmers.
“Hopefully, we can implement it in the next few months,” Mahboob said.
The girls have earned praise at home and abroad. Just last month, they won the 2018 Rookie Inspiration Award at a global robotics championship in Detroit.
“They’ve inspired many other kids,” Mahboob said.