Qudwa: STEM e-mentoring for young women in Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, the lack of female role models and the absence of mentoring and support programmes have contributed to the limited progression of female graduates into STEM professions. In this study, we present a shift in the design of e-mentoring models for younger generations to enable less committed and more flexible relationships between mentors and mentees. Qudwa is an unplatformed STEM e-mentoring system designed to facilitate communication between female Saudi professional mentors and young female mentees through existing social media technologies and practices. The design of Qudwa is based on three design requirements: (1) flexibility and control; (2) integration of e-mentoring with daily used online tools; and (3) visibility. We show the potential of existing technologies and social media platforms to facilitate a new form of e-mentoring and conclude with several design recommendations. This work encourages further investigation into e-mentoring in the context of Saudi Arabia and similar contexts and examination of different applications of unplatforming.