Naadiya Moosajee was recently announced as the recipient $25,000 as part of Facebook’s Community Accelerator program. The cash prize is additional funding that forms part of the six-month program aimed at equipping impactful communities with the skills and funding to grow.
With International Women’s Day (celebrated on 8 March every year) around the corner, there’s no better way to mark the day than with this feature. Naadiya mentioned that she was a little surprised when the announcement was made coming shortly after the final pitch offs:
“Our cohort had so many amazing communities, but it has been an incredible journey to learn more about building a community, having the space and time to finally do it. I am super excited about not just the prize, but how the entire programme unfolded.”
“I like to describe myself as an engineer and serial entrepreneur. Im really passionate about leaving a lasting impact in the world. I want to make sure the next generation doesn’t have the same struggles. So besides founding WomEng, a now global social enterprise, I co-founded WomHub with my incredible business partner (and soul mate) Hema Vallabh, which is a boutique incubator for female founders in STEM businesses.“
“I own a Turkish restaurant group with my husband and we have built it to 3 restaurant brands over the last 5 years. Im embarking on a new tech startup looking at cybersecurity. I am also a mother to 4 year old, who is such a light in our lives. Im a daughter, and one of 4 siblings, and family is really important to me. I love to travel, I have visited many countries, and miss the sense of adventure, the food and meeting diverse people.“
“Early on in my career, I experienced the worse of the industry – being paid differently to my male counterparts and then also harassed. I wanted to leave, but realised that if I left, nothing would change, which sparked the founding of WomEng, while I was still studying my engineering degree. When you look around, you realise that the world is not being designed for women, because those who were designing it didn’t understand the needs of women.
“I also say when you see how people access public transport for example – men access it via the most direct route, while women will use the most well lit, safest route, which is often longer. We spending more time accessing the same service, so how much more time / money / energy is being spent on the basics. I am passionate about getting more women into the engineering industry so we can create a more equitable and inclusive world, from the board rooms all the way to classrooms.“
Naadiya Moosajee is the founder of WomEng, a community aimed at attracting, developing and nurturing the next generation of women engineering leaders, established in 2006 to create a more diverse and inclusive engineering industry by developing women and girls in the sector. They connect, educate and support women and girls throughout the engineering pipeline. Over 50,000 women and girls have benefitted from their global programs. Naadiya describes the organisation as being borne out of frustration complete with a personal journey of seeing an industry at its worst:
“When we just started it, we said we wanted to “Revolutionise the face of Engineering.” Today, we run development programmes to attract girls into engineering, with a commitment to empower 1 million girls through STEM education. We run innovation and entrepreneurship challenges for female engineering students, we run leadership development programmes for the industry and work on capacity building around diversity, equity and inclusion. We run incubators and accelerators for STEM businesses. We work from attraction to ownership, all along the engineering value chain. While we are proudly South African, we have run programmes all around the world, from Colombia to Indonesia. We refocussed our mission to truly transform the sector to looking at ownership.
She came across Facebook‘s Accelerator programme on social media with the community aspect of it attracting her to it. “We have had over 50 000 beneficiaries across our programmes, and for a long time we wanted to build a community, connect our past beneficiaries and create this incredible network of women. Beyond the money, it was also about building our community better.”
“Its been incredible to have the money to hire new staff, including an Alumni engagement person. We have also trained 126 Ambassadors to do grassroots outreach as part of our #1MillionGirlsInSTEM campaign.”
Her message to other aspiring girls and women equally looking to make a difference is to first find great mentors, followed by connecting to new networks and lastly, always raising your hands at the sight of an opportunity, “you never know where it will lead,” she concluded.
