Dinara Auyelbekova

A black-and-white headshot of a woman with long, dark wavy hair parted just off-center. She is wearing a white button-up shirt with the first button unbuttoned. Behind her are three graphic circles: one yellow, one dark blue and one white.

Founder and Director, Girls Power Fund

KAZAKHSTAN

Dinara Auyelbekova founded Girls Power Fund in 2021 to empower young women to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Providing high school students with hands-on experience in coding, web development and project design, her organization has worked with over 700 girls and has developed partnerships with Eurasia Foundation, local universities and the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan. Using a project-based learning methodology, Dinara’s organization has delivered 20 tailored programs focused on developing technical and leadership skills. Each program is created using a participatory design process, allowing program participants to voice their interests, aspirations and needs in the development of the curriculum. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Girls Power Fund launched a free tutoring program after learning that students were not able to complete homework due to childcare responsibilities during remote learning.

Dinara is an international consultant in project management working with Eurasia Foundation, UNDP Kazakhstan, and Germany’s Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations. She holds a master’s of business administration in international management from Geneva Business School and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.