Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017
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The Afghanistan FIRST Global team. (Courtesy of First Global)
Last week the US Supreme Court temporarily approved parts of Trump's travel ban, preventing visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US without an approved family connection, employee or student status or other pre-existing relationship. The Court will issue a full ruling when it resumes its caseload in the fall.
One of the first casualties of the new travel ban are six teenage girls -- an all-girl robotics team of young engineers from Afghanistan -- determined to participate in an international science competition scheduled for mid-July in Washington, DC. The irony of the situation is that Afghanistan is not on the travel ban list, and visas have been granted to teams on the list.
Denied a one-week travel visa to participate in the FIRST Global Challenge, the team has already risked their lives in Afghanistan, travelling twice under the reality of truck bombings to Kabul in April. The Afghan team members are from Towhid, Malakai Jalalai and Hoze Karbas High Schools. The trip from their small town near Herat to Kabul was to complete their visa applications. Nothing about the scientific competition was easy for these young women. Other global competitors received their box of raw materials in March. When their own box was held up amid concerns about terrorism, the young engineers improvised, building their motorized machines from household materials, writes The Washington Post.
Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan's first female tech CEO and founder of Citadel software, who brought the girls together, told Forbes that the girls "were crying all day." While the exact reason for the visa denial remains confidential, only 112 business travel visa from Afghanistan were granted in May 2017, compared to 780 business travel visas from Iraq and 4,067 from Pakistan.
FIRST Global president and former congressman Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) -- who I know -- was disappointed by the news and frustrated that the “extraordinarily brave young women” won't be able to travel to the United States and instead will have to watch their robot compete via Skype. Teams from Iraq, Iran and Sudan will be at the DC competition -- although Iran and Sudan are also on the travel ban list.
Digging into details about this story, there is an in-depth one waiting in the wings. The FIRST Global Challenge 2017 is to 'Provide Access To Clean Water'. This organization led by a two-star US Navy Admiral and former member of Congress -- FIRST Global Challenge -- has an impressive list of 13 more future engineering challenges that must be met, ones certain to inspire young women and men students, scientists and creative thinkers worldwide.
Dean L. Kamen, inventor of the Segway, was a founder of FIRST in 1989. On the topic of clean water, his simple statement summarizes the critical nature of the FIRST Global Challenge 2017.
