Roya Mahboob

Founder of the All-Girl Afghan Dreamers Robotics Team

The recipient of LSC’s inaugural Courage in STEM Award, Roya Mahboob, 38, is an Afghan tech entrepreneur who founded and coached the all-girl robotics team known as the Afghan Dreamers. Death threats from the Taliban and others did not deter her from promoting computer education and employment opportunities for young women in Afghanistan. As the founder and CEO of Citadel Software in Herat, she is one of Afghanistan’s first female tech CEOs in a country in which only 5% of women work and 20% are literate. Named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013, Mahboob has created nine tech education centers for high school girls in Afghanistan and similar programs in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal.