In May, we inspired nearly 500 girls and boys in the USA, Luxembourg, and Belgium! We celebrated our third g4g Day @Cincinnati with P&G (and 320 girls), our second g4g @work in Luxembourg with Vodafone (and 150 girls), and the first makerspace of 2019 (with 20 girls and boys)!
This month, the girls experimented with everything STEM related, from making their own shampoo to hands-on procurement tips, from building 5G towers to the chemistry of ice-cream – and all through we met with amazing role-models and guest speakers from VPs, CEOs and Councilwomen, to even Luxembourg’s Princess Tessy de Nassau.
Finally, since we couldn’t actually see the sun due to a rainy and cloudy Belgian weather, we started to wonder… “But what color IS the sun?!” 20 kids found out during our Rainbow Lab and discovered all the secrets behind light, colors, and much more in our last makerspace, on May 25th!
Read all about it below!
On May 6, 2019, we were back in Cincinnati for the third year in a row with our amazing global partner, P&G as well as the Greater Cincinnati STEM Collaborative and the University of Cincinnati. What a day!
320 girls joined us and experienced all the fun behind STEM… They gathered chemistry skills to make their own beauty products, ice cream and polymer worms, they discovered all the secrets behind the human DNA, they got to see and touch an actual brains, dissecting frogs, they had fun coding… And so much more!
Cherry on top, thanks to the wonderful 130 volunteers, the girls could benefit from mentoring sessions with wonderful role models from the STEM fields.
A huge thanks to all the speakers of the day ; Catherine Ochterski, VP of HR at Pilot Chemical Company, CEO Pam Butcher, Pilot Chemical Company, Jennifer Ahoni, Scientific Communications Manager and Senior Engineer, Procter & Gamble, Chelsea Nuss, Founder and CEO at The STEM Lab, Councilwoman of Forest Park, Tamaya Dennard, Cincinnati City Councilwoman, and Anna Lanzillotta, University of Cincinnati Electrical Engineering Student. Finally, a massive thanks to all the volunteers, amazing role-models of the day and all our corporate sponsors, including Duke Energy, Pilot Chemical and Kroger Technology.
On May 22nd and 23rd, we did two things we don’t do often… We shared DNA talks with a Princess and we hosted two events within two days in the same location thanks to 40 amazing volunteers.
Indeed, for our second g4g@work in Luxembourg with Vodafone and the Ministry of Education, we welcomed 150 girls across two days of hands-on STEM activities. In addition to some of our signature workshops (hello DNA in a necklace, scribblebots, statistics with M&M’s, and polymer worms!), the girls also explored all the secrets behind Customer IoT, learnt how to program Pepper the humanoid robot, and understand the beautiful magic (and logic!) of coding.
During these two days, we were also incredibly lucky to have amazing guest speakers: Princess Tessy de Nassau and g4g Founder, Melissa Rancourt, both highlighted the need for women to support each other, be kind to one another, and remember that they are worthy and capable exactly as they are, right this moment. Fabienne Lesbros, and Carmen Maftei, from Vodafone, shared their experiences of women in STEM with the girls. Picturing them in a big men’s jacket and shoes in the Eurotunnel, and hearing the statistics of women and men at the office was absolutely brilliant! Finally, Francesco Ortele, from Vodafone, talked to the girls about data safety and online privacy, while Patrick Krier, from SCRIPT – The Ministry of Education in Luxembourg, reminded everyone of the much-needed work we need to do in education overall to achieve gender-balance.
The conclusion of these exciting and exhausting two days? Let’s leave the final words to one of our g4g girl: "[g4g] is so much fun, encouraging, and overall, a great experience! Girls are amazing! We're ALL worth it.”
We couldn’t have said it better 😊
Finally, on May 25th, we invited 20 girls and boys to join our Rainbow Lab, in our beautiful g4g Atelier in Brussels for our new makerspace.
The goal? Finally discovering all the secrets behind light and colors! After enjoying snacks and customizing their labcoats, kids casually talked about light refraction and chromatography. We asked them lots of questions and we all discovered that the Sun is actually… not yellow! Kids then had a better understanding on how light functions and breaks apart, and after looking at the color spectrum they broke into groups to enjoy two activities. Some learnt all the hidden colors of blacks and it’s rainbow effect with chromatography butterflies, while others got messy and saw how physics, forces and colors were making wonderful pendulum paintings! Finally, the kids all got together to craft their own kaleidoscope looking-glasses through which they could gain new perspectives of the world. Thank you all so much for attending to our new makerspace, and a huge thanks to all our lovely volunteers for coming and helping us in our Rainbow Lab!
Alright, and just like that, May has ended. Will we meet you in June? We hope so! Get ready for the Summer to arrive while we prep for an event in Italy with Stanley Black & Decker, and our yearly Summer Camp with ISB in Brussels!
