In this networked society, it is extremely important for everyone to be technically skilled to cater to the growing demands in the tech field and accelerate careers in the tech domain.

Since 2016, Ciena Corporation’s Women@Ciena group aims to break down barriers that exist for women and encourage them to lift their voices in their workforce and communities. The group participates in initiatives such as mentoring, coaching, and development discussions.

Women@Ciena Asia Pacific and Japan has been continuously endeavoring to empower underprivileged women by supporting them to learn new skills and build a career in the tech space.
In continuation to our efforts, Women@Ciena APJ launched a laptop donation program in association with Connected Women to donate decommissioned laptops to a charity based in Singapore called Aidha.

A micro-business school dedicated to ending the cycle of poverty, Aidha provides financial literacy and entrepreneurship education for foreign domestic workers in Singapore.

Aidha, which is Sanskrit for ‘that to which we aspire’, runs various programs allowing low income women to take steps to achieve a brighter future for themselves and their families.

Connected Women Founder Gina Romero nominated Aidha for the donation program based on their aligned mission to create opportunities for underprivileged women.

Based in the Philippines, Connected Women is a multi-awarded social impact startup that helps Filipino women reach their goals by providing training for entrepreneurship, freelancing, and remote work.

Now with over 75,000 members in its community, Connected Women is focusing on providing socially responsible AI & digital task outsourcing, ultimately creating livelihood opportunities for women in both urban and rural areas.

“Aidha has been a huge inspiration for the work we are doing here in the Philippines. As a daughter of a Filipino Domestic Worker, their mission is very close to my heart”, says Romero.
Recognising the problem that most domestic helpers are trapped in a vicious cycle of ending up penniless after working so hard, Aidha aims to equip them with skills to build a more sustainable future for themselves and their families.

Regional Managing Director, Services Sales at Ciena, Gordana Koops said “Ciena is proud to support this fantastic initiative to foster digital inclusion and connect women across the region”.
Let’s help more women reach their goals by enabling their access to connectivity, technology, training, and income generation opportunities.

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About Ciena

Ciena is a networking systems, services, and software company. We’re driven by a relentless pursuit of network innovation—enabling our customers to adapt within ever-changing environments to deliver richer, more connected experiences for their business and users. 

About Connected Women

Connected Women offers technology skills development and remote work opportunities to disadvantaged female communities in South East Asia. Its vision is to be a leading community for women’s economic empowerment in the digital economy, and is focused on creating opportunities for women, through entrepreneurship, freelancing and remote work.

Connected Women has received global recognition for creating meaningful progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our awards include: 2018 Finalist – MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (ASIA), 2019, Finalist – RSA Future Work Awards (UK), 2019 Champion for e-Employment – WSIS (Geneva), 2020 Finalist – COVID19 Action, 2020 UN Women, Womenʼs Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Awards (Philippines).

About Aidha

Aidha is an award-winning charity that offers financial education and self-development programmes on money management, computer literacy, communication and entrepreneurship for foreign domestic workers and lower income women. Aidha envisions ‘sustainable futures through financial education’ so that every woman has the opportunity to determine her own future.

With Aidha students sharing their skills with their families and friends, a whole community benefits, making the multiplier effect of our financial education programmes significant and life-changing. By educating one woman, we can help impact nine lives. Since we were formed in 2006, more than 5,000 domestic workers have benefited from our programmes, impacting over 36,000 people in some of the poorest communities in Asia. (Visit our website, www.aidha.org [aidha.org], for more information.)