Somaya Faruqi (also spelled Farooqi) (born 2002) is an Afghan student and engineer, and the captain of the

Afghan Girls Robotics Team The Afghan Girls Robotics Team, also known as the Afghan Dreamers, is an all-girl robotics team from Herat, Afghanistan, founded in 2017 by Roya Mahboob and made up of girls between ages 12 and 18 and their mentors. A documentary film featuring me ...

, also known as the "Afghan Dreamers." She was named to the ''BBCs 100 Women in 2020 and was featured by UNICEF in 2020 as well as the UN Women Generation Equality campaign in 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, her team designed a

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

ventilator to help fight the

coronavirus Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...

in Afghanistan.

Early life and education

Faruqi was born in 2002 and is from Herat city, in western Afghanistan. As a child, she became interested in engineering by watching and working with her father in his car repair shop. Her mother had been unable to have a formal education past the age of ten, due to Taliban restrictions on the education of females. Faruqi has said, "I want to become an electronic engineer in the future, and I am blessed to have the full support of my mom and dad."

Career

In 2017, at age 14, Faruqi was one of six members of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, founded by

Roya Mahboob Roya Mahboob ( prs, رویا محبوب) is an Afghan businesswoman. She founded and is CEO of the Afghan Citadel Software Company, a full-service software development company based in Herat, Afghanistan. She has received attention for being am ...

, that traveled to the United States to participate in the international

FIRST Global Challenge The FIRST Global Challenge is a yearly Olympics-style robotics competition organized by the International First Committee Association. It promotes STEM education and careers for youth and was created by Dean Kamen in 2016 as an expansion of FI ...

robotics competition. In 2018, the team trained in Canada, continued to travel in the United States for months and participate in competitions. After their United States visas expired, Faruqi participated in team competitions in Estonia and Istanbul. By early 2020, at age 17, Faruqi became the captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team. The team met on a daily basis after school. In March 2020, the governor of Herat at the time, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a scarcity of ventilators, sought help with the design of low-cost ventilators, and the Afghan Girls Robotics Team was one of six teams contacted by the government. Using a design from MIT and with guidance from MIT engineers and Douglas Chin, a surgeon in California, the team developed a prototype with

Toyota Corolla The is a series of compact cars (formerly subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in ...

parts and a chain drive from a Honda motorcycle. Faruqi's father served as a driver for the team, picking them up from their homes and driving on side streets to avoid checkpoints to help them get to their workshop. UNICEF also supported the team with the acquisition of necessary parts during the three months they spent building the prototype that was completed in July 2020. In December 2020, Minister of Industry and Commerce Nizar Ahmad Ghoryani donated funding and obtained land for a factory to produce the ventilators. Under the direction of their mentor

, the CEO of Afghan Citadel Software Company, the Afghan Dreamers have also designed a UVC Robot for sanitization, and a Spray Robot for disinfection, both of which were approved by the Ministry of Health for production. In early August 2021, Faruqi was quoted by ''

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programm ...

'' about the future of Afghanistan, stating, "We don’t support any group over another but for us what’s important is that we be able to continue our work. Women in Afghanistan have made a lot of progress over the past two decades and this progress must be respected." On August 17, 2021, the Afghan Girls Robotics Team and their coaches were reported to be attempting to evacuate, but unable to obtain a flight out of Afghanistan, and it was reported that they asked Canada for assistance. As of August 19, 2021, it was reported that some members of the team and their coaches had evacuated to Qatar. By August 25, 2021, some members arrived in Mexico. On August 26, 2021, Faruqi was quoted by '' Reuters'' as stating, "We left Afghanistan for our education and one day we will come back and we will serve our people and our country."

Honors and awards

* 2017 Silver medal for Courageous Achievement at the

, science and technology * Benefiting Humanity in AI award at World Summit AI * Janet Ivey-Duensing's Permission to Dream Award at the Raw Science Film Festival * 2018 Entrepreneurship Challenge at Robotex in Estonia * 2020 ''BBCs 100 Women
TEEN. GIRL. ACTIVIST.
( UNICEF, October 9, 2020) * 2021 ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 Asia
Inspiring girls to know: Four stories to celebrate girls in ICT
( UN Women, April 21, 2021)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faruqi, Somaya Living people Women engineers 2002 births 21st-century Afghan women 21st-century Afghan people