The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced today that Assistant Secretary Ann Stock will launch “TechWomen” – an international exchange that uses technology as a means to empower women and girls worldwide. For five weeks, 37 women from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the Palestinian Territories will participate in a mentorship with their American counterparts at 24 U.S.-based technology companies. Later this year, U.S. mentors will travel to the Middle East and North Africa region to conduct workshops for women in the technology sector and young girls who have expressed an interest in pursuing a tech-based career. The initiative will launch Friday in San Francisco.

Twenty four technology companies in Silicon Valley and the Greater San Francisco Bay Area are serving as mentors. They include: Adobe Systems, Inc., AT&T, Carnegie Mellon University – Silicon Valley, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, Intel Corporation, Internet Systems Consortium, Juniper Networks, LikeList, mPay Connect, NetApp, Newcomb Anderson McCormic, Northgate Environment Management, Inc., Parallel Earth, SAP Labs, Symantec, ThoughtWorks, Yahoo!, and ZaReason.

TechWomen builds on President Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo where he called for greater collaboration in technology between the United States and countries with majority Muslim populations.

A Department of State initiative, TechWomen partners with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Institute of International Education. For more information, go to www.techwomen.org.

Media contact: Talley Sergent, SergentRT@state.gov