From the conversations around our first few ideas that sparked the creation of the ‘Join the Club’ campaign to what it developed into; it truly is a project I am so proud to be a part of! A part of this campaign has been shining a light on key historic women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) in order to pave the way for women progressing into future roles.
We’ve looked back at key women from each role and I’m ashamed to say I only knew of one of these women prior to my research for this campaign and I wish I knew why, because I could easily rattle off men who have also achieved incredible things within STEM!
So, this is where we need to turn the focus to education… at the age of 23 these women sparked a sense of amazement within me. They have achieved truly incredible milestones within their careers, some of which being well before you would have thought achievements like that were even possible, yet they did! And I’ll bet the majority of us didn’t even know they existed?
If I can be amazed and inspired at this age when I’m already out of education and into my career, imagine the impact it could have on girls just beginning their education? Would it spark more girls to look at STEM roles?
We need to look at education from a primary school age and teach children about women who invented (what has now become) computing, teach them about the inventor of the physical computer, the brothers who invented flight, the woman that then flew across the Atlantic, the woman who helped get man to the moon and then teach them about the astronauts that carried out the mission.
The next generation should spend their childhoods being inspired and told they can do anything, because it’s true, the above is proof of that! But where do we begin?
If you’re a business owner, public speaker or anyone who believes we need a strong influence on the younger generations, please reach out to your local schools and colleges to see if they will let you give a talk to pupils so that they can explore the avenues they don’t even know exist yet in order to see a positive change going forward.
If everyone takes a progressive step towards helping in education, even if it is just one talk a year, hopefully we will then begin to see more women coming into the roles we stereotypically see as being male: the coders, the developers, the engineers and so much more!
All the incredible people mentioned within this blog are included in the list below along with links to articles all about their achievements. Please, if you can, take the time to look at how far we’ve come and how far we hope to keep going:
Which brings me to our final incredible girl in the series, a girl shaping the future, right now: Avye Couloute. At the age of 10 she founded Girls into Coding so she could encourage thousands of young girls into coding. She is so talented and beyond her years – I cannot wait to see where she is in 10 years, taking the tech industry by storm I imagine! Read her story here: https://10tonolimit.com/