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Thousands of young Australian women are set to gain a significant career boost, thanks to a $100 million grant from one of Australia's most recent billionaires.
The foundation has made its largest donation to date to support the 20-year program.
This initiative will provide a path for girls in Western Sydney to pursue careers in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Mr. Khuda initially resided in Western Sydney after relocating to Australia from Bangladesh, and he established his first data center there in 2017.
Pacific region.
It was purchased by the asset management company Blackstone in September of last year for $24 billion in a sale that also netted Mr. Khuda $500 million in cash. He remained as CEO in the company, which he still owns a stake in, valued at approximately the same amount.
Mr. Kudha mentioned that during AirTrunk's growth, he encountered difficulties in identifying women with the required experience for technical and senior management positions. He also noted that those who studied science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects often did not pursue careers in those fields.
"The Khuda Family Foundation STEM Program will establish a highly valuable cohort effect - creating a community and, in due course, STEM alumni and leaders that will provide girls with the resources, role models, and mentors to enhance their success," he said.

He stated that he selected the University of Sydney due to the shared objective of contributing to Western Sydney's expansion and the necessity of tackling gender disparity.
According to a report by the Department of Industry, Science and Enterprises, released in August last year, a 16 percent wage disparity exists between men and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, a slight reduction from the 17 percent gap in 2022.
Only about one-third of university STEM students are female, and women make up about 15 per cent of all people employed in STEM professions.
The report's research tracked a group of STEM university graduates from 2011, which found that 31 per cent of those women eventually worked in STEM fields by 2021, compared to 56 per cent of the men in the same cohort.
In the meantime, girls still comprise only a quarter of students enrolled in Year 12 in information technology, physics and engineering courses.
"This is a long-term program, and its advantages will multiply over time," Mr. Khuda stated.
'I aim to make a lasting difference and contribute positively to society because of my strong conviction in the significance of promoting diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.'
Anandikaa Ramesh, a third-year student majoring in Bachelor of Engineering Honours (Software Engineering) and Bachelor of Commerce from Western Sydney, stated that increased visibility of women in STEM fields would make a difference.

'In my coding classes at the university, women remain significantly underrepresented. It's about providing young girls with the opportunity to actively participate in STEM and have their thoughts and viewpoints valued and respected,' she said.
The earlier we can ignite and support the interest of girls in STEM, the better. I'm from Western Sydney, and there's a clear need for a program like this.
Mr Khuda stated that he initiated an effort to identify and recruit more talented women to AirTrunk about four years ago, resulting in around 38 percent of the company's workforce currently being female.
He keeps a five percent stake in AirTrunk, which has rapidly expanded due to the surge in cloud computing and AI backed by large companies like Google and Amazon, a phenomenon Mr Khuda predicted ten years prior.
The entrepreneur emigrated from Bangladesh at 18 years old to attend university and earned a Bachelor of Business degree in accounting and finance from the University of Technology in Sydney.
Prior to this, he attended Harvard Business School for further study and subsequently secured high-level positions at Fujitsu, Pipe Networks and NextDC.
He co-founded AirTrunk in 2015, driven by the conviction that data centres can be rapidly constructed and built at scale before being acquired by tech companies.
By 2016, he was drawing on his superannuation and seeking bankruptcy advice from his lawyer after securing a contract to build a data centre, but he struggled to secure investors who were hesitant to take a risk.
Eventually, MrKhuda secured $400 million in funding from international investors, including Goldman Sachs, and the company established its first location in Australia in early 2017.
The company now has 11 of them in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia.
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