Who’s UpNext? Aliyah Qayum! She is a participant in the Emerging Young Global Leaders Accelerator program 2020 North American edition. She is also someone who is passionate about coding and empowering women through technology.

Having coded three apps in the past years, Aliyah wishes to take on her next endeavour to tackle the important issue of period poverty. She believes that all women and girls in the world should have access to sufficient sanitary products to fulfill their basic needs. It was surprising for her to find out that so many women and girls don’t have access to sanitary products due to poverty, causing them great inefficiency in participating in daily activities such as going to school.

Aliyah plans to launch an app to help in solving this issue. This educational trivia app will donate sanitary products to local women’s shelters for every correct answer to questions about period poverty. All the profits from the advertisement will also be used to ensure that sanitary products can be provided to those who need the most.

How did Aliyah find out about this program? What was her most valuable session? Is there any way you can help her to make this project come to life? Learn more about Aliyah and her experience by listening to this week’s UpNext episode: Code for Change with Aliyah Qayum. Available on Spotify.

This episode was hosted by Echo Jiang. It was edited by Zola Mirenge and engineered by Zenga McCurdy. Music by ⁠Jonas⁠ from ⁠Pixabay