It's International Womens Day today (March 8), and there are a bunch of apps on iPhone, Mac, and iPad that can help empower women in the best way, from their interests to their mental health.
Apps can do more than use up an hour at lunchtime with a game or a streaming app like Disney Plus - they can help give someone confidence and make them feel involved where they may not feel the same where they are in the world.
With social media becoming more challenging to let more diverse minorities rightfully have their say, it's been up to people like developers to give others a chance in new and unique ways.
With this in mind, here are three apps that showcase how they can supercharge someone's confidence and education for all ages.
Wisdom
In a social environment that seems to be driven by divisive news and angry public debate, Wisdom cuts through to offer friendship and inclusion. Finding like-minded people to discuss ideas and be supportive of one another, particularly in areas where many feel like they aren’t included. A community like Wisdom is just that.
Thanks to creator Dayo Akinrinade, Wisdom has already given many women that place to learn and come together. She created the app while working at ‘one of the Big 4’ accounting firms, and wanted access to resources and networks that were traditionally out of reach for 1st generation immigrants like herself. Wisdom came about to help people connect and create community.
Available on iPhone, it's a place for people who are traditionally talked over or ignored to have a chat, learn from each other, and feel that they belong. Features like voice replies make it feel more personal, as you can hear who you’re talking to. When all around you is a sea of information with nothing to grab hold of, Wisdom is a calm oasis that can build you up and make sure that you feel like you matter.
Rebel Girls
Led by CEO Jes Wolfe, Rebel Girls is a platform that's available on iPhone and iPad, where young girls can discover a bunch of inspiring stories involving women who have made a success in some way.
A winner of Apple’s 2022 Design Awards, the app curates books, podcasts, and audio stories to help raise the most inspired and confident generation of girls.
While you can buy these books in hardback form, using them on an iOS device unlocks unique features, such as weekly audio releases and audiobook versions that can give atmosphere and depth to help young girls imagine these stories in new and different ways.
All of these are well made, and Wolfe has said that there may be plans to bring Rebel Girls to other mediums in the future, such as TV shows and films to help spread the word to other girls around the world.
Pilot Fast Track
At just 16, Angelina Tsuboi has already released a bunch of apps, available to use on your Apple device right now, alongside being an Apple Swift Student Challenge winner. But a new app aims to help give flight fans better insight and inspiration to follow a career in the field.
Tsuboi is a licensed pilot and after taking to the skies, caught the bug, but found that the route to being a pilot, especially for a woman, was very difficult. Pilot Fast Track is her way of helping with that through an iPhone, by empowering aspiring aviators to find customized flight scholarships, explore opportunities in aviation, and discover resources to help fund their endeavors and education.
Using the app, it's simple but elegant - it easily lets you find scholarships to look into for an aviation career in a few taps, and cuts out the bloat that many other educational sites offer, such as links to courses that have no bearing on aviation.
Flight Track is an inspiring app, and it would be great to see an iPad app, alongside a way to find even more scholarships around the world, as this has great potential to reach even more aspiring aviation fans.
Women reaching the top
A note from Tammy Rogers — Staff Writer
These are just some apps that are led and created by women in an industry that traditionally, hasn't been particularly easy to access for women – in particular BIPOC women and trans women. Things are getting better, however, with ever more women reaching the top of the tech tree, leading innovation and invention as they go.
There is a long way to go, however, and we want to take a moment to note this International Women's Day that the tech industry is still largely male-dominated. One needs only look at the boards of some of the largest companies to see that.
That's why it's so important to celebrate women like Angelina, Jes Wolfe & Dayo who are helping to make things a little more woman-friendly, and inspire the next generation of women and girls to take their places in careers in the tech industry.
