MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

RightsTech Women

One-line solution summary:

Advancing the human rights of girls and women in STEM

Pitch your solution.

1. RightsTech Women solves gender inequality in STEM education and employment with two solutions.

2. Our solutions

Solution 1: We build a bridge between STEM and human rights, in order to enable mutual capacity transfer between STEM and human rights fields, so that girls and women in STEM enjoy their human rights.

Solution 2: We deliver innovative 'hybrid' trainings on STEM and on human rights.

Our project, 'Robotics, Programming and Rights for Girls' was recognized as a 2021 global WSIS Champion in Category 1 - the role of governments and all stakeholders in promoting ICTs for development.

3. If we scale our programs to 33 countries, we will enable girls and women to enjoy their human rights in STEM education and employment and make progress to relevant SDGs by 2030.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Today, there is a widespread global gender inequality, with less than a third of the world’s technical workforce being women (UNESCO 2017) and women earning on average 20 percent less per month than men across all sectors (ILO 2018). Inequality is at risk of worsening: the need for STEM skills in the job market is increasing rapidly but the pace towards equal representation is slow and in some cases, even going backwards.

65% of children entering primary school today will end up working in job types that don’t yet exist. (WEF 2016)

75% of jobs will require STEM skills of some kind in the next decade. (Australian Govt. 2016)

Less than 15% of data scientists are women despite job growth in this field. (BCG 2020)

Education: Globally, only about 31.5% of graduates from STEM-related fields are women and most higher-income countries fall far below the average. (UNESCO 2015-18)

Research: Only 30% of all researchers worldwide are women. (UNESCO 2019)

Leadership and entrepreneurship: Only 28% of startups have a female founder in their founding team. (Women in Technology Leadership 2019, Silicon Valley Bank)

What is your solution?

Solution 1

RightsTech Women proposes to solve the STEM inequality gap by building a bridge between STEM and human rights. This facilitates the mutual capacity transfer between these fields, in order to achieve the enjoyment of human rights by girls and women in STEM. RTW looks at under-representation of girls and women and STEM from a new, human rights point of view, and shares its findings with relevant stakeholders in order to contribute to positive change.

Solution 2

RightsTech Women offers innovative, ‘hybrid’ trainings that combine STEM and human rights content for girls and women covering the whole lifecycle, starting from age 10 and going all the way through lifelong learning of women in all of STEM. Our innovative project, Robotics, Programming and Rights for Girls, done with local partners and piloted in Geneva, Switzerland, was voted as a WSIS Champion in 2021 during the International Telecommunications Union's WSIS Forum.

RightsTech Women works in three interconnected areas, all bridging STEM and human rights:

Research and Data Visualization
STEM Capacity Building
UN Advocacy and Human Rights Education and Training.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Target populations:

(1) RightsTech Women works with girls aged 10 and older and women, who are learners and professionals in STEM. We work in consultation with rights holders. We cover the whole lifecycle of girls and women in STEM starting from age 10 and up.

(2) We work with educators including other organizations providing STEM education, and with schools.

3) We engage with large STEM companies.

(4) We engage productively with governments to provide expertise and knowledge products, taking advantage of our location and their presence via diplomatic missions in international Geneva, at meetings such as the International Telecommunications Union's WSIS Forum and others.

We are meeting the needs of target populations by providing girls and women with the skills they need for the jobs of today and tomorrow. As well, we meet the need to ensure long-term change in attitudes and mindsets leading to exclusion of many girls and women from STEM, by training educators and equipping communities with tools they need for long-term stability, namely, STEM skills as well as the skills in promoting and claiming human rights, and using public discourse and civic engagement to solve problems. We meet the need to build bridges between countries by providing a network of learning and exchange in good practices to promote gender equality in STEM. Our vision is for a world in which girls and women know and enjoy their human rights. This involves also working with employers and governments, who can help us to speed up the pace of change and meet our target for equality in STEM education and employment by 2030. We provide tech and human rights solutions all in one package, delivering value.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Equip everyone, regardless of age, gender, education, location, or ability, with culturally relevant digital literacy skills to enable participation in the digital economy.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Our solution aligns with the challenge: Equip everyone, regardless of age, gender, education, location, or ability, with culturally relevant digital literacy skills to enable participation in the digital economy.

We advance the human rights of girls and women in STEM, ensuring equal opportunities and representation in STEM education and employment. We provide girls and women with STEM capacity building. As well, we educate stakeholders on the link between these skills and human rights, like the rights to education and equality. We enable girls' and women's participation by training more girls and women in 33 countries in 5 global regions.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Geneva, Switzerland

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

Our current stage of development is the Growth Stage: We have piloted our project and now look to scale it up in phases to 33 countries total, in groups.

Pre-start-up phase (2017-2018): Conceptualization and mission, vision, strategy, research.
Piloting phase (2018-2020): Market survey, content development, testing the concept of hybrid workshops (STEM and human rights), 400+ learners and 35 coaches trained in Geneva, Switzerland.
Growth phase (2021-2026) (Today): Fundraising and hiring, scaling up, measurable growth in learner numbers, learning outcomes and career intentions. We are splitting our countries into three phases: short-term, medium-term, and longer-term, to reach 33 by 2026.

Stabilized growth / Saturation (2026- ): A network of trained girls and women, and a self-sustainable, critical mass of trained educators/coaches in partners’ communities who can and do keep delivering hybrid STEM and human rights training and advocacy.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Ellen Walker, Founder and President

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website or an app, provide the links here:

https://rightstech.org

If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new application of an existing technology

What makes your solution innovative?

Our solutions are innovative because they bring together in one value package STEM capacity building, and human rights education and training. We have not come across other organizations giving STEM and human rights training in hybrid trainings to girls and women. We plan to train 5000 educators coming from the formal education sector and from the sector of other organizations that provide STEM education to girls and women. We will train them on our methodology and hybrid content, and they in turn will help us reach 500,000 engaged interlocutors in 33 countries, forming a critical mass of connected, trained girls and women in STEM who know their rights.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Audiovisual Media
Internet of Things
Robotics and Drones
Software and Mobile Applications

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Poor
Low-Income
Middle-Income

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequality

In which countries do you currently operate?

Switzerland

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Belgium
France
India
Sweden
Switzerland
Tanzania
Turkiye

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

Currently: 500+

In one year: 10,500

In five years: 500,000

How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?

RightsTech Women measures impact using various methodologies and tools

Dedicated learning and process improvement staff person (Impact Assessment Officer)
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that measure : engagement, commitment and participation from the target audiences at different stages of their growth
KPI-based Continuous improvement - Learner and teachers’ feedback feeds into our continuous development.
RTW’s research program will conduct impact studies.
Activity and program level evaluations, pre- and post-training assessments
We track learner engagement on the education platform we use, and also make human rights content freely available on YouTube.
Collection of qualitative data via learner and interlocutor impact stories, narratives and testimonials.

About Your Team

What type of organization is your solution team?

Nonprofit

How many people work on your solution team?

We have five members of the core team. We hope to grow to have a staff of 18 FTE in the next three years:

2021: 3 FTE

2022: 16 FTE

2023: 18 FTE

18 FTE is the current target maximum staff number.

How long have you been working on your solution?

4 years in a voluntary capacity

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Meet the Team: https://rightstech.org/meet-th...

We have a great core team of five people coming from different disciplines and we are three women and two men.

1. Ellen Walker, Lawyer - human rights law (U.S. & U.K. (Scottish))

2. Prachi Bhave, Engineer and data analysis (India)

3. Alexandra Schafhauser - law and economics (Sweden)

4. Brice Copy, Software engineer (France)

5. Makoto Ikeda, Physicist

We are a trans-disciplinary team, meaning that we share with each other methods and skills used in our different disciplines to solve problems. The lawyers learn to code, and the STEM field team members learn human rights.

One of the best days so far was when the founder (lawyer and tech learner) lost her voice and one of our engineers offered to give our human rights training, which the engineer had heard by then multiple times. Our team will continue to work across disciplines and in this way, share capacity between our fields, which is the whole intention of the organization.

We develop solutions in consultation with the rights holders and bring experience in supporting representative organizations from around the world to learn about and claim their rights, recognizing the experiential knowledge and expertise that every learner brings to any training. We operate on a theory of capacity exchange because in fact we learn from our learners what matters most to them as well as their own solutions. Our 3 areas are all interconnected: research, training, advocacy.

What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?

Our team leadership team is diverse in gender, heritage and age, which adds value by allowing us to come up with more ideas and approaches to problems by applying our diverse experience and knowledge. We are three women and two men. The founder is a woman. We ensured to make our board diverse.

We are committed to having a diverse staff as we grow to a staff of 18, since we recognize the value that diversity adds. Our hiring phase will include job descriptions that use gender-inclusive language, and we will strive to grow to a team of 18 FTE from different backgrounds, disciplines and perspectives. We will monitor our diversity as part of our internal monitoring and evaluation. We will include a budget line for web accessibility for persons with disabilities, to comply with WCAG standards, in our website and platform. We will set up our own internal channels to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for everyone and have a budget line for internal training and professional development, to include the skills necessary for a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Among the values of RightsTech Women are:

Diversity – [RightsTech Women] Respects diversity and the value that it adds.
Equality and Nondiscrimination – Recognizes that all women and girls enjoy equal rights, status and opportunities. Makes no distinction based on nationality, origin, race, religious beliefs, disability, indigenous heritage, LGBTI, age, or other status.

Teamwork – Values the contributions of all team members, who work together to achieve the shared mission of empowering rights-holders.

Your Business Model & Partnerships

Partnership & Prize Funding Opportunities

Why are you applying to Solve?

We are applying to this initiative because it offers the chance for an organization with a global solution the resources needed to scale up. Our organization currently faces the barrier of finding financing to cover our ambitious and achievable programs in 33 countries of operation.

In order to bring our innovative solutions to more girls and women around the world, and to the stakeholders involved in ensuring STEM gender equality, RightsTech Women needs support to navigate the challenges of scaling up.

We would love to benefit not only from financial support but other forms of assistance and organizational partner matchmaking available in the network. We would be glad to learn from others who can share their experience in scaling up and who can help us. As well, we can exchange experience with other female founders.

As a nonprofit in the new space of STEM and human rights, which we are helping to define, we face the particular challenge of accessing innovation funding that is not just given to for-profit companies. With most innovation funding we have seen so far, it seems that the model beneficiary of that funding would be a for-profit startup. In Switzerland, about 11 % of IT specialists are women so typically, startups here are predominantly male. We do not fit the typical profile of an organization that could benefit from some of the Swiss innovation funding, for example, unless we sell products or services - but we want to keep our trainings free for girls and women.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Legal or Regulatory Matters
Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design, data analysis, etc.)

Please explain in more detail here.

Human Capital: We are always looking to identify suitable board members who share our passion and can bring value, diversity and skills to our organization. Assuming we raise scaling funds, we will need to hire and could use the services of a staffing agency if such support were available. Because of Swiss permit rules, we will recruit locally but may need to go further to build a diverse, talented staff across our organization.

Financial: In this area, we mostly need help with pitching to investors (donors) along with identifying interested donors who share our values.

Legal or Regulatory Matters: In this area, we need support to draft all of our internal- and external-facing policies, including on data protection, privacy, our community engagement rules, human resources, Swiss VAT advice, etc.

Public Relations: In this area, we would like to further strengthen our brand and develop a cohesive branding across our channels, social and global media. We will re-do our initial website. We would be grateful for support to develop our marketing strategy that can take into account our global market and phased scale-up.

Product / Service Distribution: Along with marketing, we would appreciate support to expand our client base in our selected countries of operation, connecting with local partners in order to provide relevant information and services.

Technology: We will use laptop computers and robotics hardware in our training and in addition to hardware, can benefit from software licenses. We would also be open to web development and user experience design support for implementation of our new website and training platform. As well, we would like to benefit from assistance from a web accessibility expert service provider specialized in this, who can ensure the accessibility of our website and training platform in accordance with current standards.

What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?

Corporate Partners

We would like to partner with global STEM companies with presences in our selected countries, who can help advance our solution through collaboration. We can collaborate through joint initiatives and outreach to local communities to provide training, careers and rights information to girls and women. Our preference would be global STEM employers who already have a developed social responsibility program with dedicated staff and resources, or who are interested in building their gender inclusion. We seek corporate 'Foundation Partners' who can help us with seed funding and are interested in our long-term growth. This support will allow us to hire staff and grow as planned.

Foundations and Grant-Making Institutions

We would like to partner with global foundations supporting girls and women in STEM, or international human rights work (or both), who can provide the critical core and operational funding we need now, even before specific project funding. Since some donor organizations prefer to find their grantees rather than to be contacted by potential grantees, it will be helpful to have support to raise such organizations' awareness of us and our innovative solutions, to obtain core, multi-year funding.

STEM Education Providers

We seek partnership with STEM education providers including universities, schools and other nonprofits providing STEM education to girls and women. We would like to exchange capacities, resources, and to train educators and students on our hybrid content, which they can use in their teaching and/or in their professional lives. We would be very happy to partner with MIT.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The ASA Prize for Equitable Education? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The ASA Prize for Equitable Education to advance your solution?

The United States is one of the countries we selected for our 33 countries of operation. The founder is from the U.S. and very conscious of the need to increase both STEM and human rights awareness, and to build this crucial bridge we have talked about elsewhere in our application, between STEM and human rights. Where we are in the world today reflects the lack of sufficient human rights education at all levels of education. The U.S. is a bit of an outlier these days in terms of lacking an A-accredited National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in line with the Paris Principles, like most other modern democracies have. Such NHRIs have a strong mandate for a national human rights education program. Meanwhile, we can help fill the gap and build bridges.

Our online training modules can be used by teachers in the classroom to train students not only programming, for example, but on women in science, ensuring additional content that will help change perceptions on girls' and women's roles in science. This ensures that girls learn that it is normal for girls and women to do STEM careers. These modules can be given in workshops for girls but can also be provided to the classroom as a whole, ensuring that boys also learn about women in science.The improved understanding of these participants will help to create the more inclusive STEM workplaces of the future and build a community of informed young persons about the possibility of STEM careers for girls.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion to advance your solution?

We do not have specialized expertise in providing training to refugees, as in the many diverse humanitarian aid service providers operating in that field. However, if the funder were interested in funding us to train refugees living in the local Geneva, Switzerland community, we could do this incrementally and locally here, provided that our participants and we are able to access each other and if we had translation funds available if needed. This project would necessarily include a scoping phase first since we did not yet conduct 'market' research in this area. The next phase would be to provide refugee girls and women in the Geneva area with our already-piloted trainings on STEM skills and on their human rights. There is a Swiss organization focused on this topic based in Lausanne, Switzerland, called Powercoders; we could reach out to partner with them.

In making our country selection, we mainly excluded conflict countries since we are a new NGO and do not position ourselves to deliver training as humanitarian aid. We have the exception of the country of Burundi, which experiences significant political violence. In this case, we anticipate training participants living in Burundi, remotely or outside the country but we do not focus on refugees.

Aside from this, we are not targeting conflict situations, nor groups of girls or women who are refugees.

Our values include neutrality: "Neutrality – Does not take sides in hostilities."

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The HP Prize for Advancing Digital Equity? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The HP Prize for Advancing Digital Equity to advance your solution?

If granted the prize, we would use the funds to benefit the rights holders - girls and women aged 10 and older who are learners and professionals in STEM - as follows.

1. Research and Data Visualization: in order to better understand
the problem and which actions work. Today, certain data on women's situations in STEM are lacking; RTW works to close this gap. RTW’s targeted research enables RTW and stakeholders to make better decisions about where to focus training and advocacy, and to share solutions that work, avoiding re-inventing the wheel while taking into account specific local contexts.

2. STEM Capacity Building: RTW develops and delivers open-source STEM training content. It builds the capacity and confidence of girls and women in STEM skills to enter STEM careers. It builds a network of girls, women and STEM career mentors, and creates links and pathways for job opportunities.
RTW is developing cutting-edge, hybrid training content designed to inspire and train girls and women for STEM careers, empowered with their rights.

3. UN advocacy and human rights education and training: RightsTech Women does United Nations human rights advocacy, and gives UN advocacy training and support to organizations of STEM girls and women. RTW offers information to decision makers, directly, and with rights holders, whom it supports. In RTW’s capacity transfer program, it trains rights-holders (girls
and women) about their rights, as well as other stakeholder learner groups, such as professional developers of any gender, using training content it creates that is tailored to learner needs.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Innovation for Women Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use the Innovation for Women Prize to advance your solution?

If awarded this prize, we would use it to advance our solution of providing hybrid STEM skills and human rights training to girls and women in 33 countries in five regions. We are delivering innovative projects and solutions, like our Robotics, Programming and Rights for Girls project, which was recognized as a WSIS Prizes 2021 Champion in Category 1 - the role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development.

We continue to develop innovating STEM skills training that integrates human rights into the content and methodology. We would develop further modules of our Python Women in Science programming course and other programming courses for girls and women to familiarize them with new technologies:

● Functional and scientific programming with Python.
● Discovery and practice of web technologies.
● Introduction to automation and the Internet of Things.
● Data science and modern visualizations.
● Discovery of machine learning.
● What is cloud computing? How to make the best use of it?
● Quantum computing and its use in science.

At the same time, we would train girls and women about their human rights in STEM education and employment, like the right to education, and the right to equality. We would also train other stakeholders on these same rights, and train trainers, in this way, building up a communities with the skills and tools to advocate for the rights of girls and women in STEM, going forward with a view to reaching equality by 2030.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The AI for Humanity Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The AI for Humanity Prize to advance your solution?

If awarded this prize, we would apply it to our Research and Data Visualization program, allowing us insights on STEM equality challenges and successes, as well as to our training program in which we will provide girls and women courses on AI and the ethics of AI. In this way, girls and women will be trained on the possibilities offered by AI to solve their real problems, and ensure that more girls and women will be AI developers shaping the future of AI and its applications. The involvement of girls and women as developers and decision-makers in the development and application of AI will be critical to the success of AI. Given the lack of representation of girls and women in STEM education and employment globally, special measures are needed to reach equality by 2030 including in AI development. By leveraging technology, we can identify specific challenges and solutions more readily and involve girls and women in the global movement to ensure that AI is used for humanity's benefit.

One of RightsTech Women's values is Humanity:

Humanity – Ensures respect for the human being; promotes mutual understanding; friendship, cooperation and lasting peace among all peoples; and, tries to improve the human condition around the world.

We see our role as one of building bridges between countries and regions, reducing STEM and human rights inequalities among not only genders but among countries and regions. We focus on open-source technologies and equip communities with human rights tools needed to guide ethical development.

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The GSR Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

Yes, I wish to apply for this prize

Explain how you are qualified for this prize. How will your team use The GSR Prize Prize to advance your solution?

If awarded this prize, we will use it to deliver our programs in Research and Data Visualization, UN Advocacy and Human Rights Education and Training, and STEM Capacity Building.

We offer training of different lengths in-person (as possible) and online, to girls and women aged 10 and older in 33 countries in five regions. We develop innovative training tools and our methodology includes hybrid STEM capacity building and human rights content.

We reach girls and women to give them skills and confidence to enter and advance in the careers of today and tomorrow, and work with stakeholders to increase understanding of equality in STEM education and employment as a human rights issue and global challenge. Our research shows that it is indeed a global challenge, with room for improvement in all countries.

We deliver STEM capacity building and the impact of our programs are to help communities and governments reach Sustainable Development Goals on education, equality, decent work, innovation, and reducing inequalities.

Thank you for considering us for all of these prizes and opportunities.