A pioneer opening up the digital world for Cambodian girls
For International Women’s Day 2023 we’re spotlighting 18-year-old Narith Vicheda from our Generation Future initiative, and learning how she overcame obstacles to become a tech pioneer
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Narith Vicheda has always loved making things. “I consider myself a builder at heart,” she says. As a child growing up in Battambang, she would save the wooden sticks from occasional ice lolly treats and build miniature houses with them. Now that she’s 18, her passion remains but her tools have changed, and she uses computer code to build projects that open up the digital world to more Cambodians, particularly girls. Her Wander In Tech project was successful in securing a place on UNICEF’s Generation Future programme, and focuses on introducing young people and children to technology and encouraging them to explore.
“Technology can build solutions to problems Cambodia faces, such as deforestation, or help us create better and more efficient practices in agriculture. Technology has a powerful role to play in our future.”
We’re shining the spotlight on Vicheda today as part of our International Women’s Day celebrations, in keeping with the global theme: “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. In recent months, the release of artificial intelligence (AI) apps such as ChatGPT have pushed us all closer to a brave new technological world, an excitement reflected in their popularity: ChatGPT is now officially the fastest growing app in history.
However, women and girls are still often excluded from the technological frontiers. Research has shown that just 1 in 5 of the AI workforce are women. That’s why tech pioneers like Vicheda are so important, not just to Cambodia’s future but to the world’s.
“When I was growing up in Battambang I was aware of technology but I didn’t really know how to use it. My father had a computer but I only played a bit on it.” Things changed when Vicheda won a place in one of the specialist New Generation schools pioneered by Cambodia’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and supported by Kampuchea Action to Promote Education (KAPE) with a mission to “move public schools to the next level so that they can achieve ‘maximal’ standards of education, especially in the STEM subjects”.
“That’s when I first learnt to code,” Vicheda recalls fondly. “The first thing was silly, really, programming an avatar to dance, but it got me excited.” Vicheda quickly progressed to learning Java Script, Python, HTML and CSS. “I was trying things out, learning from my teachers and YouTube, and joining communities and programmes like Technovation Girls and Generation Future. One thing I like about the tech community in Cambodia is that it is so collaborative and people really help each other learn.”
Vicheda now plays a key role in that community. With the ongoing support from UNICEF and the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP), Wander In Tech has delivered a range of technology workshops directly in rural schools and created an online coding camp. “I never got that opportunity when I was growing up, and I know I would have loved it. When we go into rural areas, we meet some young people who have never even turned on a computer. We sometimes ask the students what they want to do when they are older, and 90% say doctors or nurses or teachers. It’s never occurred to most of them that tech could offer a future. We hope that we can give people a taste of technology and some people will like it enough to pursue STEM education.”
One thing Vicheda and her team noticed very quickly was that when they offered technology workshops to younger children, at least half would be girls. When they started offering it to older groups, however, many girls dropped out. “I think it comes down to social mores. One young girl we met was doing a robotics class, and the parents were pushing for her to leave it and study arts. They thought technology was only for boys. So there’s a lot of pressure. We have to see more women working in technology, to inspire students and then teachers and also parents.”
Vicheda has experienced barriers herself. Her father was initially skeptical about her interest in technology, and she remembers one school experience vividly. “When I finished high school I talked to all my teachers about my plans for the future, especially with the Wander in Tech project. One male teacher said he had presumed I would want to study medicine. Why? I’d never mentioned anything about being a doctor!”
She remained determined, however, and has been rewarded with a scholarship place to study technology further in the USA. She applied during COVID, and points out that it was only thanks to digital tools that she was able to access this opportunity. “Technology definitely improves educational access and can open up new possibilities for students. It can help rural students as well as urban ones to explore their own interests and potential.”
Vicheda’s plan now is to continue with Wander In Tech while she studies in the USA, and then return to put her knowledge to use in her home country.
“I want to explore and travel and learn, and then I want to build something that really helps me and other people. That would make me feel complete. And if I can encourage more girls to embrace the potential of technology by being a kind of role model, that would make me very happy.”
