Check out Bolor-Erdene Battsengel online!

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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

Intro: 

Doria Lavagnino: It’s not every day that I sit down with a woman who has worked at the United Nations and the World Bank, and has earned her MBA and master’s degree in public policy at Oxford. She also served as the youngest member of Mongolia’s government. She founded a company called GirlsCode. She did all of this before she turned 30. While in government, she crafted a four-year plan to transform Mongolia into a digital nation and introduced a platform that currently offers over 1,300 online services to citizens. She has gotten some notoriety for her accomplishments: She was named a Next Generation Leader by Time magazine and a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia. Bolor-Erdene, welcome to SheVentures!

Bolor-Erdene Battsengel: Thank you so much for having me.

Doria: Thank you for making time. 

From Childhood to Digital Access Advocate

Doria: Can you start by describing your childhood and how it influenced you to become a passionate advocate for digital access?

Bolor-Erdene: I was born in a very small town in Mongolia. Mongolia is a country sandwiched between Russia and China in Central Asia. It’s a country that kept its tradition with nomadic culture. I still have relatives living as nomads in the countryside. I was born into a family that lived in the countryside. 

[When I was] around 10 years old, I came to the city. I remember being bullied a lot coming from the countryside because there are a lot of differences between children being educated in the city and children being educated in the countryside. I spent so much time studying hard and reading books. I was a nerd.

Doria: It’s good to be a nerd. You don’t realize it in high school, but when you get older you [do].

Bolor-Erdene: Yes, exactly. I finished high school when I was 14 [and] finished my undergrad when I was 18. [For] most of my life [and] career, I’ve been the youngest person in the room, especially in government [and being] the only woman in the room. 

Doria: That’s a known fact about you —  that you had finished your undergraduate degree by the time you were 18. It makes me wonder, do you often find that you’re one step ahead of people? How has that been for you? How has that manifested?  

Bolor-Erdene: I think just along the way I learned to compare myself with myself rather than others because I have always been different from others.

Doria: Smart.

Bolor-Erdene: I think one of the qualities I learned is to see the good in people, like what are the skills that I need to learn from them. I don’t really feel different. A few days ago I was talking to my friends, and realized I’ve lived a very different life from my friends compared to their lives and [a] normal childhood [or] career.

Doria: Absolutely. As you mentioned, you came from a rural area. What was the driving force behind your deciding to focus on international education and becoming instrumental both in government and public policy?

Bolor-Erdene: I think I was very lucky to start off my career with Asian Development Bank, right after I finished my undergraduate degree. I got to learn about international development. I became very judgmental of international organizations and their implementation in countries like Mongolia, which spend millions of dollars but don’t have a real impact. 

I have seen many projects not only being implemented in Mongolia but many developing countries not having a positive impact or the impact that we would expect. I became very critical of these things which led me to further study these development issues. I did a lot of work in rural development in Mongolia, Australia, the U.S., and even Samoa with the World Bank. I got to learn different pieces of international development.

Why Projects Could Fail

Doria: What would you say are the common themes? There is this tendency to throw millions or even billions of dollars at a problem or infrastructure building. Oftentimes, it doesn’t have the impact that it was intended to. In your opinion, from what you’ve seen, what do you think are the biggest factors projects fail?

Bolor-Erdene: There are a lot of different issues, including the government’s involvement. If the government is active to implement this project successfully in their countries, or there might be corruption issues; many countries do have corruption issues. The international community tried to bring one experience from other countries, which was a successful case. Then, when it gets translated into the other country, it doesn’t match the culture or reality. A lot of projects fail because of that; the lack of knowledge or because they refuse to learn about the culture of the country in which they’re implementing the project.

Doria: That’s really interesting. It reminds me of an organization I’m familiar with: World Connect. One of the things that they do is they see themselves as stepping in and helping get a project started, but also the community members, I think, pay a very small percentage. It’s really about them getting off the ground. I wonder if, based on what you’ve said, that’s a way of ensuring that projects are meeting the needs of the people that they’re trying to reach.

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, I completely agree with that. It’s important to learn what the differences and similarities are between countries, communities, and even small groups.

The Success of E-Mongolia

Doria: Yes, absolutely. You [were] responsible for leading the project of ensuring that Mongolians have access to the Internet when you were actually the Minister of Digital Development and Communications. My understanding is you are the youngest and only woman who has been in the position [and] also the youngest in the government. How did you convince your colleagues, that are mostly male, to invest in a technological infrastructure? Did you get a lot of pushback or were they open to it? How did that work?

Bolor-Erdene: There are several factors. I joined the government in 2020. The reason, actually, I joined the government was to implement a project called E-Mongolia: an e-governance project to help our citizens get government service on their phones or laptops to get to the government service facilities. It has been a challenge for them. 

Many people were not able to get very simple government services. It has a big digital inclusion problem, not only in Mongolia [but] everywhere. One of my priorities was digital inclusion. Rather than trying to give the benefit to citizens who are living in the city already, — who would have easy access — we’re more focused on the people who are living in disadvantaged [areas]. 

We were very lucky in a way, because of the pandemic. We used the pandemic to promote E-Mongolia, especially when we had a series of lockdowns. One of the campaigns we ran [was] called Run Your Errands with the Government. We introduced services that are free online. If you go to the office, then it’s not free. There is a chart. We used different encouragement, engagements, promotional things. 

One of the approaches we pursued was usually [that the] government is very bureaucratic, especially when a citizen goes to the government. There is a very typical red bureaucracy. When we launched E-Mongolia, we used it as a private-sector product. [It] gained almost 80 percent of the adult populated users. I think 95 percent of the Mongolian adult population is using E-Mongolia, as well. 

Doria: That’s incredible. It’s probably better than the U.S.

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, and just getting simple services like getting your passport would take hours to stand in the queue waiting and you have to come back to pick up [and] stand in the queue for several more hours. Now, you can just order your passport in three minutes and have it delivered to your home or office. People are starting to see the easy way of doing things and start using it actively. [They’re] recommending it to their family and friends. 

Doria: It’s great to see the benefits and then to have that word-of-mouth referral, which doesn’t cost you anything. People are liking it, which makes perfect sense to me. 

Gender Perception in Mongolia

Doria: How is gender perceived in Mongolia? What would you say are the biggest challenges, generally, of women and girls?

Bolor-Erdene: The gender issue in Mongolia is very interesting. Traditionally, it’s very male-dominated. If you see the statistics of the number of girls graduating from high school, women finishing master’s degrees, women holding Ph.D. or doctorate degrees, [it’s] much higher than the men’s.

Doria: Interesting, okay.

Bolor-Erdene: To pursue their family business, —  which is agriculture or animal husbandry, —  for men, there are several cases where their education is left out. They had to pursue and keep their family business or family culture while women are sent off to good education. When you see the private sector and public sector and decision-making level, the percentage of women in power and decision-making roles is very, very small. 

I was one of the first women to lead the ICT sector in Mongolia. I was the first female state secretary of digital development and the first vice minister. These things do not make me proud. It’s an equality issue. One of the things I always emphasize is that we have a lot of problems in the world. We have gender inequality, education inequality, and income. [There are] ways to help solve these issues. On the other hand, the biggest problem is digital inclusion. If there is no digital inclusion, then there is an inequality gap [that] is getting bigger and bigger —  to the point that we cannot solve it anymore.

Doria: You raised such an interesting and complex issue when you talk about women becoming educated, yet that not translating to them holding managerial or executive roles. What do you believe happens, then? It’s not a pipeline issue, clearly, right? There are educated women. Why do you think it happens?

Bolor-Erdene: I think for one, there is a traditional mindset to support men in the executive or managerial and political decision-making or powerful positions. To women, being supportive of each other is a real-life issue. When March 8th comes, everybody talks about it and forgets the next day. I don’t think we have built a successful culture on that yet, not only in developing countries but around the world.

Doria: Oh, absolutely.

Bolor-Erdene: Even women prefer men over women. It becomes a bit of an issue. Another thing is I think the concept of feminism and human rights —  the understanding has turned into a wrong turn; like we talked about it way too much and then [didn’t act] on it properly. In a political sense, especially, it’s very competitive because there are very few slots for women, but women never fight a big competition on that. I think it’s about creating the culture, building the culture, and creating a balanced understanding around the world.

Doria: Yeah, it’s so interesting because this is the second interview I’ve done today. The first was with an American woman. She raised the same issue of sometimes it’s actually women who are not supporting other women or are competing with other women. If that mindset can be changed to one of collaboration and inclusivity —  it sounds easy to say and not as easy to implement, especially when people are surviving. That’s interesting to me that I’ve heard that now twice today from different places in the world. 

Being a Young Woman in Government

Doria: In an interview, you did with the Associated Press, you described what it was like being a young woman in government. It says, “When I worked in government, it was typical that I would get a question asking me, ‘Oh, whose assistant are you?’ Or like ‘Are you here to work as a waitress?’ Whenever you see a young woman, it’s the stereotype. And even from the public, it’s an unusual image. And then I got a lot of cyberbullying from old male politicians.” How did you handle those situations? That must have been difficult.

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, I think, the time since I joined the government, the biggest problem has always been the stereotype. On the other hand, I enjoyed so much creating E-Mongolia [and] leading the Digital Nation project. I can see with my team [that] we’re creating an impact and changing the country. This was the best part, but what comes with this is politics, public judgment, media, and, most importantly, misinformation and cyberbullying. 

I have been writing an academic paper on misinformation and cyberbullying. In social media —  influencers, celebrities —  women get much more bullying and harassment online than men. In Mongolia’s case, from my personal experience, there haven’t been many young women in such a high position. 

I always respect the trust that was given to me to be in these positions. I work hard to prove, protect, and create as much as I can in these positions. Again, I can’t emphasize enough that it’s very important to create equality, especially in a place in which an institution is supposed to create inequality, legally, or executively. It was a big challenge for me, to the point that it became so unhealthy to continue working there. In the system, you have a choice. You can think into the system [and] be one of them. You can be part of the big system and be quiet, but what we want is a change. What we want is equality [and] improvement. 

I really want to talk about these things. I have a lot of young women [and] girls [following in my] footsteps, joining the government. It’s my responsibility to share what’s the reality because it can look all glamorous or all fancy on the outside. It’s very important to bring out the reality and facts. The facts are sadly the stereotypes and mindset, especially considering if you are a young woman. We’ll have to change. 

Doria: Right, there’s an assumption that you don’t know, right?

Bolor-Erdene: Yes.

Doria: Yeah, which it’s a weird kind of age discrimination. As a woman in her 50s, I think [about] how, typically, people think of age discrimination as older people. It happens to young people just as much. There’s an assumption that you don’t have experience, that you’re not qualified or you don’t know what you’re capable of. The second thing, I wanted to mention, is it’s so true about women being bullied on the Internet. This whole kind of cancel culture and the idea that you can say something well-intentioned and have it be distorted in such a way, yet your career could be over because of that because someone wants it to be. That’s a lot to go through. How did you find strength in those moments?

Bolor-Erdene: That’s a good question. Most of the time, I try to stick with my goal and hope that this will pass. It’s like I have to improve Mongolia, I have to do a lot of things to make Mongolia a digital nation or help Mongolia to become a digital nation. I have to stick to my goals, but sometimes it gets a bit too much —  the cyberbullying. The worst thing about the Internet is that there can be organized groups who can be hired, and you can cut like 10 seconds of video and then distribute those things. 

[That’s] exactly what happened to me. They cut the video of me speaking at a conference and kind of put everything together. Then, they had hired big troll teams —  bot teams —  to attack me [and] all these things. It’s the reality of the Internet on the negative side. It’s very important to know. Especially tech companies to be active on this, because most of the tech companies like Meta or Twitter, do have a channel that you can report. By the time you get your problem solved, it’s already gone on the Internet [and] viral. There is no way you can help. In my case, it was a political attack. The worry is that a lot of teenage girls [and] boys and children are being attacked. It’s leading to physical harm. It’s a big issue. 

Doria: Absolutely, I’m really sorry that happened to you. Truly, it’s horrible. 

Tips for Leaders

Doria: If you were to give listeners, that are mostly women, for this podcast, three tips to stand out as leaders, even when they’re facing adversity, what would they be?

Bolor-Erdene: The biggest thing I would say is to be brave. A lot of women do have responsibilities with their families, they’re avoiding risk because of their children or because they think about other things. Women are not good at putting themselves first. It’s very important to be brave in this sense. I think also, me not having a family, being a mom or a wife yet, I cannot stress enough that a lot of moms and single moms do a great job everywhere they go. 

A second thing would be to be courageous. A third thing would be [to be] hard working. Hard work is very important, but just hard work alone is not enough. A lot of success has to come with some luck, good timing, and bravery.

Doria: I’m so happy to hear you say that. My father used to say that to me. It would upset me a little bit because I was like, “No, like, if you work hard, everything should move perfectly for you.” He said, “No,” at least in his life. Yes, he worked hard, but it was also being at the right place at the right time, recognizing opportunities of luck. Those are factors that maybe people can’t control as much. Hard work I do think is important. 

GirlsCode

Doria: Let’s go to your current project, which is GirlsCode. Talk to me about how you started it. How did the idea evolve from a concept to a project and GirlsCode?

Bolor-Erdene: I currently have two hats. One is GirlsCode. Another is I’m working as a research fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, focusing on public digital infrastructure. 

Going back to GirlsCode, my coming from the countryside encouraged me to become an accountant if I [was] good at math. [They] never encourage [me] to pursue IT or ICT degrees or STEM. I thought that just happened in my generation. Working in the government, I saw the statistics, and it’s an extremely low number of women in the ICT sector and students who are interested in studying computer science or software engineering, especially at this time when all tech professions are in the world. I [explored] a bit more and realized that it didn’t change from my generation. 

A lot of girls are encouraged to become accountants, which now could be replaced by AI or technology. When you see big corporations and international tech companies, you see the statistics. If you see the roles, most of the low-skilled jobs are filled by women —  like secretaries, accountants, or cleaning services. I keep looking at these things [and] every time [I do] I get very critical. I wanted to change it [if] I could in my small capacity. 

We started GirlsCode in 2020 and so far we have 80 graduates. We bring girls from nomadic communities, disadvantaged and underprivileged communities, and teach them coding skills, advanced English, and even admission processes. We have several schools [and] universities around the world. A lot of girls work as part-time coders and reinvest the money they earned in their education because they come from disadvantaged communities. This is a very small initiative but we can see an enormous impact. 

Doria: Absolutely. Are you doing this work through the University of Oxford? Is it involved in some way with this work, or is it separate?

Bolor-Erdene: No, it’s two separate projects. 

Doria: Okay, and when you’re looking for girls to be in the program, do they apply or is there outreach on your part? How does that work?

Bolor-Erdene: We announce the admissions, and [it] is actually very complicated. It’s eight steps. We take four exams and four interviews with the girls, with their parents, and even with their teachers. It’s very competitive. We get 50 slots for 5,000 applications, which is a very high number. It’s a three-month boot camp, and then a few months followed by an online curriculum. 

For three months, everybody has to study for 12 hours a day, —  which is a very intense program —  for us to identify the girls who can be hard working and more active. It’s very important for us. The admission process is very complex and comprehensive.

Doria: Is it free for the girls?

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, it’s completely free.

Doria: I was also wondering what kind of coding you teach —  is it HTML, CSS, or Java? There are so many different kinds. How do you decide on what you teach?

Bolor-Erdene: We bring teachers from the National University of Mongolia. This year, we are also working with the International University of Applied Sciences. We teach them basics and the concept of computer science followed by Java or Python, and what they want to learn, and then divide them into groups depending on their interest.

Doria: That’s like the fundamentals and then they have electives that they can specialize in.

Bolor-Erdene: Yes, and at the end of the program, everybody has to work on their own project, which is to create an app, a website, or any product. This is the part I get excited about a lot. Last year, the girls created an app that sends alarms to their friends when they’re feeling down, sad, or unsafe. These kinds of things come from their problems and they try to solve their [it] with technology. It’s very inspiring to see.

Doria: Incredibly inspiring. I had never thought about this, but you’re right [it’s] like solving their problems from things that they’re dealing with every day and using technology. That’s where, I would imagine, the best ideas are going to come from. 

The Next Steps with GirlsCode

Doria: What are the next steps that you’re going to take with GirlsCode? Do you want to grow it?

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, we’re extremely passionate about expanding the initiative [and] curriculum to other countries. We have done extensive studies on similar programs around the world. For sure, it’s not enough. There aren’t enough initiatives. We’re looking at potential opportunities to expand the program to different countries, do some piloting and exercise some toolkits.

Doria: Where would you want to expand to, do you think?

Bolor-Erdene: Potentially, I think the place which needs a program like this the most [are] developing countries or emerging markets in Central Asia, even in Latin America, or even some parts of Europe. We are just tackling the idea for now.

Doria: Lastly, I wanted to ask you about funding. My understanding is that you were able to raise venture funds that are typical for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) funding, is that right?

Bolor-Erdene: Yeah, for the past two or three years, it was more local companies sponsoring. This year we’re looking at international communities, international organizations, or bigger companies as potential sponsors. Anybody watching this and willing to contribute, which creates an enormous impact in different communities, feel free to reach out.

Learn More About Bolor-Erdene

Doria: Absolutely. On that note, can you tell listeners where they can find out more about the school, you, and anything else that you want to draw attention to?

Bolor-Erdene: We have a website girlscode.mn. If you send us an email, we reply instantly so we can start off from there.

Doria: Fantastic. I’m really thankful for you coming on SheVentures today to share your journey. I hope that maybe we can catch up a year from now and see what progress you’ve made!

Bolor-Erdene: That would be my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Doria: Thank you.