Impact 50 Women. Change 50 Futures

A Call for Internships from the Asian University for Women - 50 Women, 50 Futures.

At InspiredMinds, we believe that technology and human resilience go hand in hand. That belief is never clearer than in our ongoing partnership with the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh, a formidable institution dedicated to educating women from some of the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected regions.

Over the past five years, we have supported AUW: helping secure internships for over 300 students, assisting in emergency evacuations, and guiding buses of young Afghan women to safety during the fall of Kabul in 2021. These women have shown extraordinary courage. Now, they need our community's help.

A Personal Plea for Support

As many of you may know, some of the Afghan students InspiredMinds helped evacuate in 2021 are now completing their studies at AUW. The AUW recently lost critical US government funding, and these young women, many of whom studied disciplines like Computer Science, Public Health, Economics, Biology, and Political Science, urgently need internships to gain vital real-world experience. These can be remote or in-person, short or long term.

An internship for them is more than a professional credential. It is:

• A bridge between education and opportunity
  
  

• A chance to gain the experience required to support themselves and their families
  
  

• A critical foothold into industries where Afghan women are vastly underrepresented
  
  

Mahdia's Words - A Voice from AUW

“ My name is Mahdia Jahangiri. Almost four years ago, I walked onto the campus of the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh carrying a backpack, a dream, and the hopes of my family in Afghanistan. Now, I stand with approximately 50 talented and driven Afghan women who will be graduating this year or next. We study fields like Computer Science, Political Science, Economics, Public Health, and Biology. We’ve worked hard, learned to solve problems, and built bridges across cultures. Our journey to AUW reflects extraordinary resilience, a quality that fuels our ambition to transform our education into tangible impact. Now, as we stand on the brink of our careers, we are united by a shared goal, and that is to gain vital professional experience through internships that will bridge our academic knowledge with real-world practice. We dream of internships (online or in-person) in any field: tech, nonprofits, finance, health, or education. For us, these internships represent more than just a resume line; they are essential pathways to accelerate our skills in areas like data analysis, project management, and sustainable development. We aim to bring fresh perspectives to your teams while gaining insights that will empower our communities in Afghanistan. This hands-on experience will allow us to prove how resilience translates into innovation and how diverse voices strengthen every organization we join. We warmly invite you to support our journey. If your organization hosts interns or you know of relevant opportunities, please share them with us as every lead makes a difference. Connect us with leaders in your network who value determination and talent, or even offer brief mentorship to guide our path forward. We are 50 stories of courage, 50 minds eager to learn, and 50 futures poised to contribute meaningfully to the global community.”

How You Can Help

We are calling on our community of technologists, startups, NGOs, investors, researchers, and ecosystem builders:

• Can you offer a short-term or long-term internship?
  
  

• Can you connect us to an organisation that might?
  
  

• Can you offer brief mentorship or a conversation to support these women?
  
  

If the answer is yes, please reach out to us at maria@inspired-minds.co.uk , sian@inspired-minds.co.uk or share this blog post within your network.

Let’s show these women that the InspiredMinds community is with them, not just in times of crisis, but in times of growth.

Please, help us place these 50 futures on solid ground.