Tell us, what’s your word?
Every year we set an intention as a team. And when September hits, we always feel energized with the back-to-school spirit in the air, and the sense of revival keeping us on our toes. For our team at greenlight for girls, our word has been REFRESH and we are intent on flipping our ideas on their heads to see what new and exploratory STEM discovery we can offer to make a difference in the lives of the girls we reach. And we have been quite literally flipping things on their heads... just look at our experiment with Tensegrity structures where we use independent pieces to create a strong structure able to (seemingly) defy gravity!
And when we have our feet firmly on the ground these past few months, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting many different events across the world reaching even more girls in STEM. Over the summer, NOURISH was one such descriptive word that took us all the way to Canberra, Australia where we had a broadcast episode with student researcher, Arabella, recent graduate, Alexandra, and Cyber Ready Officer and science communicator, Thanuri. It was incredible to have 50 girls live with us in celebration of National Science Week like 12-year-old Phoebe, who was particularly inspired by food nutrition. She loved asking the speakers questions like: what do you want to learn and do next? And if you could do anything else in the world, what would it be?
Another key word this summer was IMPACT and it took us all around the United States! Throughout June, July, and August, we worked with CDK Global for the second year in a row where we launched an internship program, this time for nearly 140 interns across the country. Their challenge this year was to become educators, innovators, or mentors to share their expertise with the next generation to inspire them in the STEM that CDK Global uses every day. Their ideas and solutions were incredible! Some of them explored the science of procrastination and how project management tools like Jira can help while others looks at linked lists and coding practices. One of our favourites was how one group related software management and cooperation with homemade rubber band cars!
Our word was GROWTH in the UK, as we welcomed Svaha CEO, Jaya, Senior Lecturer, Annabel, AIG Risk Manager, Rachel, and AIG engineering professional, Valerie, as speakers on our broadcast over the summer. We loved how Valerie explained that her passion for working in insurance enabled her to work on varied subjects, like climate change, risk, oil and more! Or when Jaya explained how, when facing gender stereotype in the apparel industry, she decided to set-up her own company. Or when Annabel explained how she caught the A.I. bug because she wanted to show her daughter that there is no age to change career paths. Or when Rachel shared her words about not being deterred by challenges and issues, and encouraged us to go out of our comfort zone! We were thrilled to have such open and exciting conversation and to have inspired over 260 views of our broadcast after it aired.
Then, of course, POSSIBILITIES was our word in India, when we heard from Covestro’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Sucheta, Oral Medicine and Maxillofacial Radiology doctor, Sunali, and STEM educator, Veena, on our broadcast episode. This was a special episode where we worked with schools in India to stream our broadcast live during their class time. Over 200 curious girls joined us live which was incredible to see! They had fun asking questions, playing with the annotation feature, and reminding everyone of the importance of encouraging girls in STEM.
We also had the chance to take part in a few in-person events that could only be described as FUN! We went to one of the local schools in Belgium to bring chemistry alive by making bath-bombs and polymer worms, as well as other experiments on physics and chromatography with over 120 young girls and boys. Then, we jumped over to an American Football game where we got to share the fun in STEM with girls and boys at a g4g stand.
And what else? Well, looking ahead, we feel JUBILANT to extend our g4g Scholarship programme even more. In rural Rajasthan, we have opened a new computer centre with the aim to help girls use computers and the power of the internet to enhance their learning and have access to online resources. We hope these initiatives will contribute towards their growth to be change agents and role models to others. We are also getting ready to launch secret worlds as part of our g4g Lab with our partners… curious? Well, stay tuned to see what all the fuss is about!
