Women In Blockchain Asia (WIBA) announced the first cohort of its women-centric blockchain programmers course in seven Malaysian universities.

Participating universities are: Asia Pacific University, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Raffles College of Higher Education and Universiti Malaysia Sabah.

Partnering with REACH and backed by Algorand Foundation, WIBA aims to curate more female blockchain coders and developers in Malaysia.

Algorand Foundation focuses on engaging, educating, and enabling its community to build a borderless, frictionless economy on public and decentralised blockchain technology. Reach is a blockchain development platform which makes building decentralised applications.

The WIBA Algorand REACH Smart Contract Training programme is free to all participating universities’ students and will run over two months. So far, nearly 150 students have signed up to the course and the platform is still open to accepting further applications until Sept 4.

“Since our launch in May, we have been busy creating linkages domestically in Malaysia and regionally, to further the cause of increasing the participation of women in blockchain technology. Collectively we believe the future is in our younger generation, hence this initiative is our first,” said WIBA president Ida Mok.

“This is the first ever initiative in Malaysia focused on increasing the number of female blockchain builders in Malaysia, and we are excited by the response we have had thus far. The programme will involve online tutorials and discussions, followed by an intervarsity hackathon at the end of the course,” added Ivy Fung, a founding member of WIBA, who is spearheading the initiative.

Similar programmes are expected to be rolled out in other countries once more regional linkages are in place. Currently, WIBA has a chapter in Singapore, with initiatives towards setting up similar chapters in other countries underway.

WIBA is a non-profit group with the aim of advancing the role and participation of women in all levels of digitalisation and blockchain understanding as well as development.

WIBA’s programmes and activities centre around three pillars: education, projects and skills. For more information, visit womeninblockchain.asia.