October 11, 2021 - MIAMI, FL - Mastercard continues its efforts to empower more girls in Latin America and the Caribbean by encouraging them to participate and study through Girls4Tech™, the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program that Mastercard launched in 2014 to offer them a curricula that incorporate the company's extensive experience in technology and innovation.
Mastercard's Girls4Tech (G4T) began as a hands-on, face-to-face session run by employee volunteers, but it has now expanded its scope to new learning topics such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity while also improving access to its STEM curriculum through a digital learning experience that has been translated into nine languages: English, Chinese, Hindi, Malay, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Polish.
What started as volunteer work in 2014 is now a program that has touched the lives of one million girls between the ages of 8 and 16 around the world, and it now aims to reach five million more by 2025. So far, events have been organized in more than 40 countries:
As part of the International Girls Day celebrations on October 11th, Mastercard also welcomes the participation of 2,000 girls in the Latin American and Caribbean region in G4T.
According to the UN, in the world today there are over 1.1 billion girls under the age of 18 who could become the largest generation of women leaders, entrepreneurs and promoters of change for the future. In this sense, Girls4Tech's desire is to help them develop the critical 21st-century skills that girls need for their academic and professional success.
Eva Mudgal was a student of Mastercard's global STEM program for girls. In a recent interview, she says that "Girls4Tech is the gift that keeps on giving." Mudgal was part of the inaugural class in 2014. Six years later, she is pursuing her bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Windsor, Canada, and she credits the program with sparking her interest in artificial intelligence, networking and security, as well as landing her a dream internship at Ethoca, a Mastercard company, last summer.
"They taught us everything so simply," she says. "That experience of exploring and experiencing firsthand the operations that go on at Mastercard was really good for the ever-increasing curiosity I have today," Eva recounts.
Through the website www.girls4tech.com teachers and parents can download lessons to help students learn about STEM topics such as coding, fraud detection, data analysis and digital convergence, from the comfort of their homes or from anywhere in the world. Lessons are currently available in Spanish.
- To date, Girls4Tech has reached one million girls between the ages of 8 and 16.
- The curriculum has been expanded to five new programs: Girls4Tech in a Day, Girls4Tech & Sports, Girls4Tech & Code, Girls4Tech Cybersecurity & AI, and Girls4Tech 2.0.
For more information about Girls4Tech visit www.girls4tech.com
