In this latest series of articles, we publish interviews of women working as professionals or students in the technology sector. The objective is to highlight their work and contribution to the industry and the community.
In these interviews, you will find women working in technology to solve real-world problems, break stereotypes, and create the next big impact on the tech industry. This series of interviews shows that even with the lowest rate of women participation in the labor market in Pakistan, there are still many smart women who are creating and using technology to work wonders.
Today, we are featuring Maira Siddiqui. Read on to learn more about her work and get inspired.
1. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, your education, and your work.
I am the CEO & Co-founder of an Ed-Tech named Chiragh Education Technologies and also an Entrepreneurship lecturer at KSBL. My EdTech Chiragh aims to achieve a “Parha Likha Pakistan” by delivering decolonized education in Pakistani languages through cartoons and games. I am a third-generation educator, hailing from a family that not only wrote the first IT policy of Pakistan but also established the Karachi Institute of Information Technology (Kiit) and wrote the Kashif Urdu Qaida. I completed my BSc in Economics and Entrepreneurship from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA, after which I pursued a diploma in Entrepreneurship from IBA, followed by an MBA from KSBL, where, Alhumdullilah, I secured a silver medal. Additionally, I have over 15+ years of experience working with educational non-profit organizations such as The Citizens Foundation and Maidan. In addition to understanding the education sector, I have also worked in the marketing teams of corporations such as Byco Petroleum and Unilever.
2. What are your future plans/aspirations? How will it impact the community/society/your team/your project?
I aim to fulfill two objectives through Chiragh. The first is to provide access to quality education to out-of-school and underserved children of Pakistan through cartoons and games in national and regional languages. Chiragh partners with Out-of-school foundations and education foundations such as Teach The World Foundation to achieve this objective. The second objective is the promotion and acceptance of local languages within Pakistan. I aim to do this by becoming the official Urdu partner for all private schools in Pakistan while creating board games in local Pakistani languages for after-school family time.
3. Please brag about your career accomplishments. What are the things you are proud of?
In the short 2.5 years of Chiragh’s existence, Alhumulilah, backed by my Co-Founder Khushal and our team, we have raised non-equity funding through several international and local business competitions such as K-electric’s KHI Awards’24, Social Enterprise academy’23 Scotland, ICESCO’s international pitchfest’22 in Morocco, Chartered Bank’s Women in Tech’23, Prime Minister’s national innovation award’23 by the government of Pakistan IBA Invent’23 and IoBM’s grant challenge’22. These wins have helped me not only establish my name as a serious startup player but also opened a window for me to label myself as a startup educator. I’ve used my experience with Chiragh to establish KSBL’s undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum and coach startups to win competitions.
4. What has been your best education/career decision, and why?
My best career decision and my best education are one and the same. In November 2018, while working in a petroleum marketing company, I asked myself if I wanted to be there on 1st January 2019. The answer was “NO,” but I also did not know what I wanted to do, so I resigned and bought a GMAT book, thinking that universities foster creativity; perhaps I would find my passion in university. So, I started a two-year MBA program at KSBL. I saw this time as a hiatus from my career. My only aim was to experiment and discover my purpose. In my last semester as a course project, I toyed with the concept of an app for learning regional Pakistani languages, and it stuck with me. Post graduation, I applied for corporate jobs very half-heartedly till one day, with a great corporate offer on the table, I decided to finally give in pursuing my passion and enrolled in NIC Karachi, declining the cushy corporate job. Looking back, I still don’t understand how I had it in me to make that decision and stick with it day in and day out.
5. What are the best lessons you’ve learned?
The value of time and the fruit of consistency. The harder I work, the luckier I am perceived to be. You can either choose to pass time or spend it, and you’re either a bystander in your life, or you can seem like you have the Midas touch; whatever you touch turns to gold. If you do choose and seem to be the latter, it’s due to consistency and your ability to forgive yourself for making bad decisions or failing. For your company to grow, you will have to grow, and you can’t do that without actively seeking knowledge. The paradox of knowledge is that the more knowledge you acquire, the more you understand that there is so much that you do not know, and that humbles you. You need that humility to learn more, especially from others.
6.Which woman inspires you and why?
Oprah Winfrey has a good time while making a lot of money and creating an impact. She speaks her mind and gets rewarded for it. She’s an African American woman absolutely killing it in a white Anglo-Saxon man’s country.
7. Do you think Pakistan has changed as a society in terms of accepting career-oriented women? What needs to change to help more women come forward?
There’s been slight progress in terms of acceptance of women in the workforce, and it’s mostly been out of necessity for a higher disposable income. I’ve seen this more in the middle and lower classes than in the SEC-A. The most visible proof of this has been the increasing number of women riding motorcycles in Karachi. While for higher socio-economic classes, I still hear stories of newlywed women who have to seek permission from their in-laws to just leave the house, let alone go to work. With home-based businesses and freelancing on the rise, I foresee a whole new generation of financially liberated women.
8. What will be the biggest challenge for the generation of women behind you?
Marriage with Financial liberation. Often, women are married off in our society at younger ages because they’re perceived to be a financial burden on the male provider of the household since these women are financially dependent on men to earn for them. Managing a career with a marriage will be the biggest challenge I foresee in the future for working Pakistani women.
9. What would it be if you could change one thing about the tech industry/business?
It needs not to be seen as a boys’ club; it needs to be inclusive of gender, religion, and abilities, and it needs to be empathetic rather than cutthroat. All workplaces and sectors need to be empathetic; we grow through empathy and collaboration, not by competing and bringing one another down.
10. How can WomenInTechPK help you and other women?
Continue fighting the good fight and bringing women together.
You can follow Maira Siddiqui using her profile(s) below, and please do not hesitate to hire her for your next project.
- Maira’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maira-siddiqui-chiragh-edtech/
- Website: https://chiraghtech.com/
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/ChiraghKidsTV?sub_confirmation=1
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chiragh-edtech/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/chiraghkidstv?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
We’ve just launched social-emotional learning board games in Urdu; you can order them for your children from our website and receive them anywhere in Pakistan: https://chiraghtech.com/Chiragh-shop/
