Female Afghanistan students denied chance to attend US-based robotics competition, but Iranians given go-ahead

Members of “Team Afghanistan” (First Global Media)

JEDDAH: A group of teenaged girls from Afghanistan have been left devastated after being denied visas to travel to the US to compete in an international robotic competition.
The six students were refused visas after twice traveling about 800km (500 miles) from the western city of Herat, to the Amercian embassy in Kabul.
Yet despite being denied the one-week visas, they were told they could still send the ball-sorting robot they have created, to compete in their absence in the US capital, Washington.
The girls will give their presentation via a video link.
Meanwhile students from Iran, Iraq, and Sudan have all been granted visas to compete in the event.
A team from Gambia is the only other team to have been denied travel visas.
The First Global Challenge is an annual contest for students from around the world.
The all-girl team had been put together by Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan’s first female technology boss.
Mahboob, who founded the software company Citadel, said the girls were “crying all day” after discovering they could not go to the competition.
Speaking to Forbes magazine, Mahboob said: “It’s a very important message for our people. Robotics is very, very new in Afghanistan.
The girls are still working on a ball-sorting robot which they will send to compete against 163 other machines at the First challenge in July, and they will appear at the event via video link from Herat.”
The girls received help with the programing of their robot from graduate students Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.
However there was a moment when they doubted the robot could go, as customs officials carried out inspections on the raw materials used to build the device, amid fears Daesh could use robots to fight their battles.
Luckily Team Afghanistan now has permission to send the robot.
Fourteen-year-old team member, Fatemah said: “We want to show the world we can do it, we just need a chance.”
Girls in Afghanistan were denied education for many years when the country was under Taliban control. This changed gradually after the US-led invasion pushed the insurgents out of the towns and cities across the country.
But there is growing concern of a resurgent Taliban reversing the progress made since the allied forces withdrawal in 2014, once again preventing girls from attending schools.
Joe Sestak, First Global president described the girls as “extraordinarily brave young women.” He told Forbes he was disappointed they had been denied the chance to travel to the US.