Afghan Girls Robotics Team Wins Limelight at Competition

Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team Wins Limelight at Competition



The Afghan team at the opening ceremony of the First Global robotics competition in Washington on Sunday. Credit Cliff Owen/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Afghan teenager didn’t say anything as she scrolled through three days’ worth of pictures on her phone, her finger swiping across the screen. Feet dangling over a Washington fountain. Posing with students from Iraq and Iran. A meal carefully laid out on an airplane tray.But then the teenager, Kawsar Roshan, paused, tilting the screen to show a picture of a piece of United States government paperwork she received only Thursday.
“This is my visa,” the 15-year-old said with a broad smile. “It’s a memory.” It took an international outcry and intervention from President Trump and other officials to allow her and five other girls from an Afghan robotics team to receive visas after two rejections, letting them travel to the United States for participation in First Global, an international robotics contest.

For three days in the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, where an African-American woman was once denied the right to sing before an integrated audience in the 1930s, the Afghan girls in head scarves were stars on an international stage, with cameras, lights and whispers trailing them from practice to competition.“Inspiring, isn’t it?” said Mark Benschop, 44, a parent with the Guyana team, snapping photographs of the Afghan girls adjusting their robot on Monday. Wai Yan Htun, 18, a member of Myanmar’s team who stopped to get the Afghans’ signatures on his shirt, said: “We love them. They’re like superheroes in this competition.” Colleen Elizabeth Johnson, 18, one of three teenagers representing the United States, said: “They’re celebrities here now. They’re getting the welcome they deserve.”

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Kawsar Roshan during a practice session with her team’s robot. Credit Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

In the competition, teams of three, equipped with kits that included wheels, gears and two video game controllers, chased down blue and orange balls, which represented clean and contaminated water. In two-and-a-half-minute rounds, teams guided the robots to sweep the balls into openings based on their color. “It’s way more fun, way more exciting than bouncing a ball,” said Dean Kamen, one of the organization’s founders and inventor of the Segway. “That’s not a competition out there. That’s a celebration.”

It was certainly a celebration for Roya Mahboob, a renowned Afghan technology entrepreneur who interpreted for the teenagers and came on behalf of her company, Digital Citizen Fund, a women’s empowerment nonprofit that sponsored the Afghan team.


The team carried the robot, named Better Idea of Afghan Girls, into competition on Monday. Credit Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/asia/afghanistan-girls-robotics-visas-trump.html