Uplifted by the success of its Women in Software Engineering (WISE) program, Microsoft plans to take the program globally which started initially in India. The company is planning to implement this program in Africa.

The WISE program comprises of a mentoring group of volunteers who intends to create an experiential learning for female students to sharpen their professional skills. Furthermore, it allows participants to enhance their knowledge in the area of their technological interest.

Charumathy Srinivasan, Partner Group Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft India Development Center, was quoted in media saying, “This year’s program brings the elements of artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, etc.” She further added, “To provide an edge to this year’s education, we have introduced bots as a part of the deep learning module to expose young women to disruptive technologies, making the program even more robust.”

Srinivasan shared with People Matters, "Leveraging its success in India, our mentor team is taking WISE beyond India. With an initial ideation in-place, we are planning to scale up the program to other countries. Addressing to a global need, we will always look at expanding our outreach when it comes to empowering women in the technology sector. So far, we have been able to cull out the insights, learnings, and stories of young women in the program which helps us develop a strong narrative to move forward."

Initially, the program started with a batch of 10 students. This year 35 students from five colleges in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were selected by a team of women at Microsoft’s Hyderabad office. As part of WISE, the students develop apps, starting with the ideation phase to publish the apps.