Category: Projects

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Organise Your Own Move It Forward Event!

As an outcome of the Move It Forward+ project, funded by the European Union Erasmus+ program, a toolkit for organising your very own Move It Forward (“MIF”) event–as well as CSR and mentoring activities to promote women (digital) entrepreneurs–is now available free, online for the public!

Move It Forward is an event footprint–sometimes called a “hackathon” or “tech-for-good” initiative–originally developed by the Digital Leadership Institute as part of its inQube “female digital accelerator” program. With MIF and other activities, inQube aims to support teen and adult women entrepreneurs by providing community, digital and business skills, and other resources they need to launch and grow successful digitally-enabled and digitally-driven enterprises.

Including Move It Forward+ project activities, the Move It Forward event has been organized 20 times in 9 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching thousands of participants, since 2014. In 2018, MIF received a Global Mobile Award, and in 2019 was recognised as European finalist for the UN ITU EQUALS in Tech Award.

Materials developed and made available within the MIF+ project are available for download on the Move It Forward+ website and below.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about and support with organising a Move It Forward event in your own city!

1. Guides: How to organise a Move it forward+ Event

We provide our Guides in 5 different languages, to support you with the organisation of your Move it forward+ event.

2. Event Preparation Documents

You can find additional and printable materials here:

3. In-event Documents

You can find a variety of printable material here:

4. Guides: How to organise mentoring sessions

You will find here all the resources related to the organisation of mentoring sessions linked to your Move it foward+ event.

Annexe n°1: Impact and assessment of women programmes and events supporting women in entrepreneurship.

Annexe n°2: Mentor’s portfolio & Mentee’s portfolio

5. Event Presentations

Our Event Presentation will be available soon!

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Women4Afghanistan

The recent withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan after twenty years of occupation created a power vacuum and resurgence of domestic forces that has triggered a humanitarian crisis.  The clamping down on human rights and freedoms, especially impacting girls and women, is forcing flight of hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals to other parts of the globe. Some of the most high profile evacuations have been of the Afghan Girls Robotics and Girls Soccer teams. There are thousands of harrowing evacuation stories, not all of which have been successful, and countless more at-risk girls and women are still living in uncertainty in Afghanistan. 

In her role as Head of EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 stakeholder interest group, Cheryl Miller, DLI Director, played an instrumental role in delivering a Declaration of Support for Afghan Women and Girls to G20 leaders, including EC President von der Leyen and US President Biden, ahead of a 24 August urgent G7 meeting on Afghanistan. President von der Leyen’s remarks there focused on the plight of Afghan girls and women: “We need to help mostly those who are at immediate risk. And those are women, girls and children, who make up the vast majority of internally displaced people – 80% of the internally displaced people in Afghanistan are women and girls.”

As Afghan refugees attempt to make their way to other countries, they will need support – for evacuating from Afghanistan, arriving to a new location, and in assimilating long-term as economic, political and social actors in their adopted homes. An initiative called Women4Afghanistan was launched by Anne Ravanona and Katharina Miller, EU delegates to the G20/W20, in order to rally support for Afghan girls and women on this path.  More information on how to contribute to this critical work may be found here: 

http://www.women4afghanistan.org/

As Afghan refugees arrive and begin the process of integrating into their new home communities, it will be up to programs like AMIF and the ATHENA project to specifically support Afghan women and their sister refugees from around the world, by delivering on its remit to promote entrepreneurship by women migrants. DLI and the ATHENA partners look forward to the opportunity to support the women and girls of Afghanistan, and women migrants from all over the world, in integrating and achieving financial independence for these most vulnerable. 

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DLI and Partners Launch WE4Change Project

On 22 March 2021, the Digital Leadership Institute and four partner organizations from across Europe launched the WE4Change initiative supporting “girls and women connecting for environmental change.” WE4Change is an EU-funded project aiming to foster civic engagement of girls and young women from disadvantaged backgrounds by empowering them to understand their strengths, develop digital, leadership and changemaking skills, and increase their sense of initiative in the social and environmental sector.

For the next two years, Digital Leadership Institute (BE), Stimmuli for Social Change (GR), Empow’Her (FR), Tekedu (MD) and ZERO Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável (PT) will work together to offer an innovative combination of hands-on activities, training on digital, innovation and environmental awareness skills, problem-solving and co-creation of prototypes to address climate change, responding directly to the needs of young women to break down stereotypes, develop their creativity and confidence, and contribute to society.

The first project meeting took place on the 23rd of March 2021, with project partners discussing the first project phase aiming at setting a solid and appropriate foundation for the development of the We4Change project. The first steps include a context specific gender analysis that will be conducted in each participating country looking at i) youth policy & youth participation programmes, ii) environment & climate, iii) digitalization and innovation related to the issues tackled by the project to ensure the appropriate development of the trainings and materials to be developed throughout the project.

To stay updated on the WE4Change initiative, follow the project Facebook page!

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DLI Announces New EU Projects

DLI and partners of the ATHENA consortium have been awarded program funding from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) in order to support women of migrant backgrounds across Europe to take up entrepreneurship. Partners to the ATHENA (“Approaches To valorise the High ENtrepreneuriAl potential of migrant women”) project, which will launch in January 2021, include the following:

DLI has also been awarded Erasmus+ funding to lead the WE4Change (“Girls and Women connecting for environmental change”) project, with the mission of increasing entrepreneurship in STEM fields by girls and women through climate change activism. Members of the WE4Change project include the following organisations:

The DLI team is excited to take up these new projects that support our mission to increase entrepreneurship by girls and women, especially in science and technology fields, in 2021!

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Women Power Code Skills Week

The Women Power Code project aims to celebrate the art of creating with code, to motivate young and adult women to start developing tech skills, and to connect individuals with organisations keen to support women in the digital society. In order to showcase achievements in the project, WPC partners from across Europe are organising Women Power Code Skills Week, a series of events addressing disruptive technologies and career opportunities arising in the tech sector. Join us for interesting discussions and practical workshops by registering at the links below, and join the Women Power Code Social Learning Community to meet like-minded peers.

14 July 18:00 CEST: Introduction to the Internet of Things: ”Build your first mobile app” – online workshop organised by Digital Leadership Institute in collaboration with CIVIC. Exploring the Internet of Things, this online workshop will focus on practical skills as we will be creating our first mobile app with MIT App Inventor.

16 July 18:00 CEST: Introduction to 3D Printing: ”Design your first 3D object” – online workshop organised by Digital Leadership Institute. Examining development of the 3D printing market in recent years, during this workshop we will learn the first steps to create a 3D object and discuss the opportunities for developing new skills and competences in this field. 

21 July 18:00 CEST: Women Power Code Final Conference: ”New skills for the digital age” – online conference organised by the Digital Leadership Institute. During this event, we will discuss the results of the Women Power Code project, focusing on the most relevant skills for the digital age and opportunities in technological fields for women who want to enter or shift to digital careers.

We look forward to welcoming you at these exciting events taking place as part of Women Power Code Skills Week!