2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

Maharat, a new digital skills program, was launched to encourage youth, with a special focus on women, in the region to learn digital skills to help them achieve their goals. Women in the region are making great strides by using technology to reach their goals in creativity, entrepreneurship, education, and advocacy. At the same time, MENA has the lowest levels of female economic participation globally. This initiative both celebrates what’s being done by women in the region and inspire others to follow their own dreams, while sharing their stories globally. The films follow the women’s journeys, showing how technology helped them to overcome obstacles and forge their own paths, and inspire other women to learn digital skills through the Maharat program. After researching over 40 women, we identified 6 unique, influential and groundbreaking women and produced 8 docu-style films which can be watched here: https://goo.gl/vPrBWN

Cultural/Context information for the jury.

To address the growing skills gap in the region’s workforce, and to help ensure that opportunities created by technology are available to everyone, we’ve launched Maharat min Google, an initiative to help people get ready for future job opportunities, advance their careers, or grow their businesses. The platform includes over 100 lessons and explanatory videos covering a range of digital marketing skills including search engine marketing, social media, video, e-commerce and more. Many women are contributing to the innovation coming out of the Arab world, yet this region has among the lowest female economic involvement globally. We’ve created a series of short films that follow the journeys of six Arab women who have become entrepreneurs, women’s rights advocates and ground-breaking YouTube creators. They show how technology has helped them overcome obstacles, enabled them to forge their own paths and inspire other women to do the same by learning digital skills.