September is nearly over and as expected, we’ve been doing a lot of planning this month. There have also been a couple of highlights and lots of opportunities that have been sent to us. Check them out below – there’s a lot to get through!
September roundup
We kicked off September with a couple of appearances at Campus Party with the EU Commissioner for Innovation and Mozilla Foundation CEO Mark Surman. Head Stemette also joined a Women in Technology panel. Some of the girls who won tickets to the Campus Party were there to witness it all – and of course, get a ‘selfie’ with Head Stemette.
We spent an evening with the WoInCo team at their September ‘Social Change’ event where we heard from Prof Alison Wolf (Author of The XX Factor) and economists that women in Technology are bucking the trend seen with women in other fields. She threw out the question ‘Why’? and we attempted to answer it.
The Times interviewed Head Stemette about why it’s important to get more girls and women into STEM and on the same day she was asked to repeat herself on ITV News. Apologies for the low-quality recording – we’re working on getting a better one…
Upcoming in October
We’ve been counting down to our Ada Lovelace Day panel event and it is nearly here. We have a few seats left, so make sure you save your spot before it’s too late. We’ll be hearing from a physicist, actuarial scientist, architect, engineer, technologist and developer so make sure you get your questions in now. Remember, the best question wins a prize!
We’re also counting down to our first Oxford hackathon on the 26th & 27th of October, being sponsored by BIPB and hosted by Christ Church. We’ll be exploring what ‘Big Data’ means and trying to create some beautiful visualisations ourselves. We’ll also have the usual laptops, prizes and food all weekend. We’ll also have a chill-out area and little Stemettes will be able to have a tour of the Harry Potter college!
For mums & ladies
Flossie Conference 2013 – Women into Open Source
Our friends at Fossbox CIC are running a two-day conference for women coders, artists and social innovators. Go along to learn more about the Internet of Things or join a CodeSprint and get coding to solve some social conundrums on the 8th & 9th of November.
Techmums – Mums can learn digital skills
Dr Sue Black will be running #techmums sessions across secondary schools in Tower Hamlets – offering free hands-on workshops and online support to mums to give them the confidence, skills and inspiration they need to take part in the digital revolution and make plans to scale it up and roll it out across the UK. She’s on the lookout for mums, volunteers and schools.
For (Little & Big) Stemettes
Our sponsors O2 are running ‘Guru App Development’ days up and down the country.
Gurus help young people get started on their digital journey by helping them create an app in an hour around
- a passion, hobby, interest or a project
- a product/service that addresses a need or a problem that they identified personally for a product/service
Currently, venues are confirmed for Belfast, Newcastle and London (The Strand). If you’d like to book yourself in, email becky@ukyouth.org
Ada Lovelace Day Live is on October 15th.
This annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and maths is hosted this year by Imperial College London and features a stellar lineup. With live demos, biomedical wonders, neuroscience, inspiration, laughter and song, Ada Lovelace Day Live is an event not to be missed! We have been given a £5 discount with the promo code ‘Stemettes’.
Would you like to help develop a STEM day for primary pupils?
Inspire is looking for STEM professionals to take part in a 2-hour forum on Wednesday 30th October. Full details are in this PDF. If you’d like to help out call Alice Kestell on 0207 275 6066 or email her on alice.kestell@inspire-ebp.org.uk
In the pipeline
Our “Student to Stemette” mentoring scheme is taking shape.
We’ll be running a 4-month opportunity from January through to Easter 2014 for 60 girls at UK universities studying a STEM subject at undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate level. Before recruitment opens, we’re looking for mentors all over the UK to offer themselves up for the scheme.
We’re trying out two new ‘STEM in a Day’ programmes.
In the next couple of months, we’ll be repeating our ‘Girls into ICT’ experiences at Accenture’s offices in Central London. We’ve also been approached by a broadcaster and engineering firm to recreate this day for them – look out for details of how you can sign your school up.
Exhibition on its way. We wanted to run our ‘Stemette Show’ exhibition in November but as yet don’t have a confirmed venue. Once we do, we’ll let you know where to be and when. Watch this space!
