The following post has been written by Salma who is in Secondary School and attended our second school event with ASOS on 5th March.
On the 5th of March, 15 lucky students visited the ASOS Head Office in Camden as part of International Women’s Week. We started the day with a tour of the Head Office in small groups. With my group, we visited the main office, photo studios, and the designing rooms, and had one-to-one conversations with the staff.
Good morning from @ASOS HQ! Today, we've invited 45 young women to the #ASOS offices to learn all about the wonders of #Tech. They'll be creating #apps and #websites to celebrate #IWD2019 #BalanceForBetter #girlsinSTEM #ASOSStemettes pic.twitter.com/nVvnTlxgmW
— Stemettes ® 🤍★ # + (@Stemettes) March 5, 2019
Then after a series of ‘getting to know’ exercises with students from two other schools, we were split into groups to start on the main focus of the day: designing and promoting an app and website to help advertise International Women’s Day (March the 8th). I volunteered to lead and act as manager of my 5-person group. As some students were not familiar with coding, we first started by learning how to use HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is the standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications.
Then we started on our project with only one hour to complete the task. In my group, we decided to create an app and website which work alongside each other. The website was to provide information about 7 influential female historical figures (one for each day of the week like an Advent calendar), leading up to a fact file about Emmeline Pankhurst on the 8th day of March.
Then the app, through quizzes and games, was designed to expand the learning and knowledge of the significant females. We aimed to manufacture an application and website which informs people of all ages, genders, and races to engage in a topic which develops a sense of appreciation towards previous figures who were efficacious in granting people rights they did not possess.
Two of us researched the 8 women, one wrote the script, one created the app and I designed and put all of the information on the website. Our ASOS volunteer helped us greatly.
After an hour we had to present our project (in 2 minutes!) to a panel of judges, including the CIO of ASOS, as well as the other 45 students and the 30 ASOS volunteers. We focused on answering questions posed by the brief: target audience, impact on our society, our aim, and what we want to see in 10 years’ time. We also decided on a humorous approach.
Let the #demoday begin! The judges have taken their seats and it's a full house @ASOS HQ. Let's see what kind of #websites and #apps our girls have created #IWD2019 #BalanceforBetter #girlsinstem #ASOSStemettes pic.twitter.com/EjJ7nDfxYp
— Stemettes ® 🤍★ # + (@Stemettes) March 5, 2019
Thankfully all of this paid off as, with a wave of shock, we found that our group WON!
After photos and prize giving, the day then concluded with a Q&A with the ASOS volunteers, which I found very motivating considering all their different stories on how they got onto the engineering and the computer science pathways.
This trip provided our young minds with the opportunity to apply our curiosity, intelligence, and creativity through several activities. It was an excellent opportunity for us all to extend our learning and knowledge in Graphics, Design, and Computer Science, outside of our classrooms. For this, I would like to speak for all the students who attended by thanking Stemettes and all the ASOS volunteers for such an Amazing Experience (including a delicious breakfast, a very yummy lunch and of course the goodie bags!)
Congrats to all of our winners from our #IWD2019 hackathon @ASOS HQ today! Huge thank you to the amazing army of volunteers and judges that helped out today – you're all #STEMazing! #GirlsInSTEM #WomenInSTEM #balanceforbetter #ASOSStemettes pic.twitter.com/DOzNyOIvfy
— Stemettes ® 🤍★ # + (@Stemettes) March 5, 2019
Impact
- Participants gave the event an 8.88 out of 10.
- 98% of participants would love to come back
- 98% of participants would love to do more coding.
- Participants had increased their knowledge of STEM careers by 84%,
- Participants increased their awareness of STEM roles by 83%.
- Participants Increased their confidence in STEM by 82%.
- Participants increased their STEM Network by 76%.
- Participants improved their perceptions of STEM by 78%.
Thanks so much to ASOS for hosting 40 pupils, and providing us with food and inspiration. We can’t wait until we’re back again with more budding #girlsinSTEM.
