This blog post has been written by Elizabeth and Megan O’Shea, 16 who attended the event, are Outbox Incubator alumni, and are the founders of Science Rocks. Our event vlog is at the bottom of this post.
On Saturday 5th December the Stemettes and Imperial came together for a fantastic day. Girls from all around London came to hear a special panel on ‘Routes into STEM’. We heard from CEOs, an Outbox executive and a ‘Mystery Man’. After posing some questions about Christmas (I am not sure if you know, but Christmas is coming) we went upstairs and got the opportunity to network and talk to all the panellists. Of course, being a Stemette event, there was food.
On this panel were:
- Lucinda Sandom-Allum – Imperial College Union President
- Sophie Deen – CEO, Bright Little Labs
- Androula Alekou – Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Oxford University
- Emma-Ashley Liles – Software Developer, 7Digital, CASInclude
- Floriane Fidegnon – Outbox Incubator Executive, Lead Author of ‘Outbox: The Book’
- Olivia Smith – Office 365 & Yammer Customer Success Manager for UK and Central & Eastern Europe.
- Sarah Chapman – CEO, Iwana Energy
- ‘Mystery Man’ Jamie Edge – iOS developer, Barclays
- ‘Secret Stemette’ Dan Garrett – CEO, Farewill
We got some excellent advice such as “Don’t let anyone tell you what to think”. We heard from Sarah that the easiest way to become a CEO was to start your own company. Lucinda, an elephant lover, also managed to squeeze in that if she met David Attenborough she would fangirl at him.
The strong messages continued as more questions were asked. It is important to ask questions, to follow your goals and that if you have a maths degree no man will think they are better than you.
It was great to see so many Outbox Executives showing up for the event and, of course, there was time for reunion selfies.
Some AMAZING networking going on! #RoutesToSTEM @Stemettes #GetToKnow pic.twitter.com/hg9xTh3Emo
— Women in Physics IC (@WiP_IC) December 5, 2015
Here’s what some of the other young women in attendance had to say:
“I would like to thank everyone who organised this. I enjoyed it and I will recommend this to my friends/family.”
“I very much enjoyed the encouragement of females working in male-dominated fields. It has boosted my confidence.”
“I loved the event! It went so quickly, I like the casual talking part a lot”
“I wish we had more time to communicate with everyone!!!!”
97% of attendees found that their confidence in STEM subjects has increased a little or a lot as a result of Saturday’s event.
Thank you to the Stemettes and Imperial College for organising a fantastic day about Routes to STEM. Photos are up on our Facebook and Flickr pages.
Our next panel event will be happening in the first few months of 2016. We’re on a well-earned break until then. Follow us on Twitter @Stemettes for updates.
