Afghan women break barriers with blockchain
Courses in coding and cryptocurrency give Afghan women a chance to connect with job opportunities outside Taliban control.
There are few opportunities for female independence in today’s Afghanistan. Shut out of education, employment, and many public sites, women are disappearing from everyday life, pushed into roles that keep them largely confined to the house. Most have been forced to relinquish hopes and dreams once deemed possible—of passing exams, obtaining degrees, securing employment, and distinguishing themselves in their chosen career. Unless they study in secret, learning behind closed doors through organizations like the Thinkify Foundation, which aims to fill the gap in opportunities for Afghan women by offering education online.
“Women are the people who create society; they should not be treated like this and denied the independence and freedom they deserve,” says Ahmad Jawed Sikandar, co-founder of the Thinkify Foundation. Over the past two years, he has watched with mounting despair as tightening restrictions impacted the women in his family. “I want to give Afghan women back their freedom by enabling them to be self-sufficient,” he says.
His response is the International Blockchain Academy, which offers courses in coding, data analytics, and blockchain to bridge the digital divide. At present, around 80 Afghan women are enrolled in the eight-week course, which explores blockchain and its application in the real world. “Blockchain is going to be the next revolution, so we think it’s important for young people, especially women, to be educated in this field so that they can work from anywhere,” Sikandar says.
Sessions are taught by a team of international experts, with classes live-streamed online. “They do it from home, in secret—we don’t want to create a lot of buzz around this because we don’t want them to get harmed,” Sikandar says.
Blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrency, has seen a sharp rise in interest since the collapse of the country’s banking system as people seek ways to support their families amid spiraling food prices and rapid economic decline. Cryptocurrency is now a vital way to get money into the country, bypassing Taliban control, banking failures, and the unreliable nature of Afghanistan’s traditional Hawala network, which relies on money brokers moving funds across borders.
“If I can get our youngsters into Blockchain and teach them about crypto, they can access great jobs with good salaries anywhere in the world – all they need is their laptop,” says Sikandar. With support from an Innovation Hub grant from Ideas Beyond Borders, he is creating an app that will make it easier for students to access the course and use the growing number of resources available on the Thinkify website. This caters to students of all levels, from those with computer science degrees who want to master Blockchain technology's complexities to basic computer literacy classes. “We want it to be simple and accessible, teaching everyone at a level they feel comfortable with so that everyone can benefit from the skills we offer,” Sikandar says.
Thinkify also does sessions in astronomy, to advance the understanding of science in Afghanistan, and English language sessions so that students can connect with the world and apply for jobs with companies based overseas. Sikandar is now hiring more staff to meet the growing demand from students in Afghanistan, with plans to expand the courses to young people in Pakistan and Kazakhstan in the future. “With these skills they can find work in a new industry that is expanding all over the world. I want Afghan women to be able to succeed in life and not pay the price for this bad experience in our country’s history.”
This article was written by Olivia Cuthbert.