Archive for April, 2010

By Wynona Heim,  Thunderbird for Good Program Manager, Afghanistan

Masooma Habibi is an impressive young woman.  Born in an Afghan refugee camp in Iran, she lived most of her life outside of her home country.  In the few years since she has returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, she has not wasted any time making a mark.

She started Check Up Company, an electrical engineering business in Kabul, and learned both electrical engineering and business administration from the ground up.  Masooma is a 2009 graduate of the 10,000 Women program in Afghanistan sponsored by Goldman Sachs and run in partnership by Thunderbird and the American University of Afghanistan.   She was a star pupil in the program, always asking insightful questions and looking for new ways to drive her business forward.

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By Wynona Heim,  Thunderbird for Good Program Manager, Afghanistan

Everyone who meets this thin, quiet and determined Afghan woman is impressed with her. She’s mesmerized Brian Williams of NBC News and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This week her effort to educate the next generation of Afghan children was lauded by President Barack Obama in his speech at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship.

Farid is a 2009 graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women project in Afghanistan, which Thunderbird runs with the American University of Afghanistan.  She founded the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization (AFCECO), and this year was awarded the 10,000 Women Entrepreneur Vital Voices Award for her work.

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As a child, Lara Abu-Salim never traveled far outside Jordan. She visited Syria and Saudi Arabia with her family, but she spent most of her time close to home in Salt.

The agricultural town, which once served as an Ottoman center of government, lies along the ancient trade route between Jerusalem and the Middle East interior. Abu-Salim earned a computer engineering degree from a local university in Salt and then started commuting to work about 30 kilometers southeast in Amman.

That’s when she discovered the Business Development Center (BDC), a nonprofit organization that has teamed with Thunderbird to help small and medium-sized businesses succeed in Jordan.

The partnership, which received a boost in 2008 with a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, already has touched the lives of dozens of Jordanian professionals and entrepreneurs through an array of educational programs.

In the process, the alliance has helped Thunderbird raise its profile in Jordan and empower a new generation of high-potential Middle East managers.

“We are seeing Thunderbird more in the news,” says Ibrahim Fahoum ’78, who operates one of Jordan’s top private elementary and secondary schools. “There are stories to tell, and that is wonderful.”

Abu-Salim’s story gained momentum when she enrolled in the Maharat program, a BDC initiative that provides business education to young college graduates from all over Jordan. She eventually earned a Maharat scholarship to study abroad for one trimester at Thunderbird.

“I always aspired to study in the United States,” Abu-Salim says. “As a female from Salt, this scholarship has empowered me and added significantly to my skill set and knowledge.”

The young engineer arrived in Arizona in spring 2009 with 18 classmates in the Maharat program. Traveling abroad without her family was a new experience, but Abu-Salim says she found a second home at Thunderbird.

She met new friends on campus from all over the world and deepened her ties to her Jordanian classmates. “We still call each other all the time,” Abu-Salim says. “We are family, really.”

Back in Jordan, Abu-Salim also shares her Thunderbird experience at the BDC with new Maharat participants. “I am a people person,” she says. “It is my passion to work with young people at the BDC. I am willing to work and learn and pay back the community.”

Abu-Salim’s hard work also has led to a customer service career at Estarta Solutions, a Jordanian company that provides information technology solutions across the region for clients such as Cisco Systems.

Customers call daily from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which gives Abu-Salim a chance to apply the cross-cultural communication skills she learned at Thunderbird. “I use my Thunderbird education everyday,” she says.