For the first time two girl teams from Turkmenistan reached the world semifinals of the international contest Technovation Girls. And all of this is due to the persistent and meticulous work conducted by the efforts of the regional representative of Technovation Girls in Turkmenistan Maral Hudaybergenova and her numerous volunteer assistants.

Technovation Girls is the largest project contest for girls in the sphere of social entrepreneurship, based on technologies. During the project girls create mobile apllications aimet at the solution of a specific difficulty or problem of the local community and the present it. This project is fully organized on the volunteer basis: participants and mentors are attracted as volunteers. In the capacity of mentors are those who strives to bring their impact to the development of local community which is the main mission of the program.

“For me is the first experience of project conduction throughout Turkmenistan,” says Maral Hudaybergenova. – Initially, about 150 participants and 10 volunteer translators were involved in the project from all over the country, who helped translate the curriculum from English into Turkmen and Russian. Our project involved 30 mentors, among whom were also our compatriots living abroad and wishing to support this initiative. In addition, mentors and translators from Japan, the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Türkiye were involved.”

The first season of the contest was launched in Autumn 2021 and during 7 months nearly 200 members of the Turkmen project with a great zeal continue to support the team and the program in whole.

The result of this team work is evident: to date, for the first time 2 teams from Turkmenistan Girls Generation Team and Electric Currents have reached the world semi-finals.

But Maral knows for sure - this is just the beginning, and it will take several successful seasons to make progress in creating a strong and cohesive community. “Girls for Change” is the slogan of the Technovation Girls program, the meaning of which is to involve girls in learning, awareness of how they can help the world through the creation of mobile applications - after all, this is one of the proposed solutions to the problem that worries them.

“The program is unique because it makes children to muse and look around, to note existing problems and develop their solution, - says Maral. – The participation in the project helps girls to evolve leading qualities, develop new skills, necessary for the development and implementation of any project such as design thinking, project management, time management, marketing, business planning, and also programming”.

The result of fruitful teamwork in the first season is also that all the necessary resources, including the curriculum in Turkmen and Russian, recordings of master classes and all sessions held for a clearer explanation of project topics, are publicly available so that everyone can start participating in the program without any obstacles. Maral underlines that there are no restrictions for participation: both mentors and participants are attracted without prior skills in the field of programming or entrepreneurship. On the contrary, mentors are invited to learn new skills in parallel with the participants during the project!

This is the third project in order in the reach experience on execution of the public programs of Maral Hudaybergenova. Two previous is the global initiatives with Google directed on the development of communities in the sphere of technologies.: Google developer group and WomenTechmakers Ashgabat, acting in Turkmenistan from 2020. Experience received there influenced on her intention to share received knowledge for free in the name of the well-being of the community in which she lives.

We wish good luck to all members of the Technovation Girls program: new victories to you, girls!

You can find out more about the details of the program in social networks.