Sharing the Joy of Learning with Women in Uganda.

This year, I signed up for a volunteering project through Cadence in partnership with Team4Tech. The project focused on creating a Makerspace, conducting a Hackathon, and creating a Digital Job Center for Team4Tech’s non-profit partner, Women in Technology Uganda (WITU).

WITU is a non-profit organization addressing the employment problem for women in Uganda. They work closely with women, inspiring them, teaching them necessary skills, and supporting them in starting businesses. These ideologies resonate well with what Cadence promotes and stands by.

The project had two phases: nine weeks of planning, design, and prototyping and a two-week in-country implementation phase.

I was part of the Makerspace team with three other Cadence employees from our different offices worldwide. Our team was working on bringing up the Makerspace, which included  3D printing, BBC micro:bit , and the virtual reality/augmented reality workshops. In the first phase, we had periodic interactions with the team at WITU to discuss ideas and deliverables, work on prototypes, and plan for the workshops. Working across different time zones and collaborating over Zoom calls was challenging; however, we received good feedback and ideas for the workshops to deliver in the implementation phase.

The in-country phase was really beyond my expectations. The team at WITU was warm and welcoming, and the women enrolled in the program were enthusiastic to learn and enjoyed the various workshops we had planned. One of the most amazing moments from the workshops was seeing the participants go beyond the workshop topics and implement their ideas on micro:bit and 3D print their designs. Knowing that all the women we talked to had these brilliant project ideas and now had some means to work on them and create prototypes was an eye-opening experience.

This project also enabled us to know the city, its people, and the different cultures and languages. We visited the National Museum and the Ndere Cultural Center and went trail walking in a tropical forest. The people were very welcoming and took good care of us. I made some good friends among the WITU staff and other colleagues from Cadence. These experiences help shed our biases and embrace something new.

In the words of Team4Tech leader Chris Meehan , although we had three teams working in three areas, we all had one common goal. The Hackathon helps tap the skills of youngsters, giving them a head start in their tech journey. The Makerspace facilitates this by assisting them in creating their own prototypes and advancing in their design process. The Digital Job Center brings it all together, helping them apply for jobs and achieve their goals.

This project has helped me become a better person, to test myself in making decisions under ambiguity, and to share the joy of learning with these young women. I hope I made a small difference in the big work that WITU is already doing. I can see these young women are already exploring the technologies that they learned last week, and I firmly believe they will excel in them very soon.

I thank Cadence for such unique opportunities to collaborate with employees around the world and contribute as a Team. I also want to mention my manager, Ajay Homkar , who encouraged me to take on this project and gave me enough bandwidth to work on it. Furthermore, without Chris’s guidance, this project would not have been successful. He has been a great mentor to work with.  

Cadence Design Systems , Team4Tech , Women In Technology Uganda

#WomenInTechnologyUganda #T4TWITU2023

P.S. Thank you Harvey Wilson and Leila van Rooden for capturing the moments throughout our visit to Uganda.