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Good practice Imported

STEM4ALL x Mentoring Her — AI-Matched Mentorship for Women and Girls in STEM (Kyrgyzstan)

Kyrgyzstan · Bishkek · See the Kyrgyzstan profile · See the Bishkek profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 56% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

An AI-powered platform automatically matches Kyrgyz women and girls in STEM with mentors. Backed by UNDP and the Government of Japan, it has connected 320 mentees with 251 mentors, tackling a gender gap where women are just 31% of STEM graduates.

320
Mentees engaged
251
Mentors engaged
31.1 %
Women among Kyrgyzstan's STEM graduates

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
UNDP Kyrgyzstan & Roza Otunbayeva Initiative Foundation
Period
Dec 2023–ongoing
Keywords
STEM education, gender equality, mentorship, digital skills

Context

Women remain sharply underrepresented in Kyrgyzstan's STEM pipeline -- only 31.1% of STEM graduates are women, and girls are scarce in programming olympiads and other STEM competitions.

Objectives

Launched in December 2023, STEM4ALL x Mentoring Her aims to close this gap by automatically matching Kyrgyz women and girls in STEM with mentors through an AI-powered platform.

Activities

The programme is implemented by the Roza Otunbayeva Initiative Foundation with UNDP Kyrgyzstan, funded by the Government of Japan under UNDP's Digital x programme; its platform, stem4allmentoringher.com, is described by UNDP as an "experimental" AI tool that automatically matches mentors and mentees online.

Results

By the time of UNDP's reporting, the programme had engaged 320 mentees and 251 mentors, and it now feeds into the wider stem4alleurasia.org regional network; no rigorous evaluation of learning or career outcomes has been published, so this remains reach evidence rather than impact evidence.

Conclusions

Independent experts, the Ministry of Education and Science and parliamentary bodies have taken part in related award-nomination processes, but no independent audit of the AI matching system itself is available.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — No budget figure is published; the platform is funded by the Government of Japan through UNDP's Digital x programme.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Launched December 2023 and still described as 'experimental' at the time of reporting, indicating an early-stage, ongoing pilot rather than an established programme.
Staffing & skills
Roza Otunbayeva Initiative Foundation, UNDP Kyrgyzstan

Conditions for success

  • Donor funding (Government of Japan via UNDP's Digital x programme) to build and run the matching platform
  • A local implementing foundation able to recruit mentors and mentees
  • Connection to a wider regional network (stem4alleurasia.org) to sustain and expand the mentor pool

Common failure modes

  • The AI matching algorithm's methodology and data-handling practices are not publicly documented, limiting transparency
  • No published evaluation of whether mentorship translates into improved STEM retention or career outcomes

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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