Superheroes STEAM ahead!
By Alyona Medelyan
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This campaign was successful and closed on 20/02/2015 at 11:18 AM.
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Superheroes STEAM Ahead!
Project 2015-01-20 22:14:47 +1300
STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.
STEAM ahead is a series of career events that educate school girls and mums about possible career choices in these fields. Each event showcases careers of successful women who explain what they do and how they got there. Each event also promotes after-school activities that help educate girls and keep up their interest.
This time, we are planning a very special event... an event that uses the power of Superheroes to promote careers in STEAM. The event will feature two talks from two very special female superheroes: Nanogirl aka Dr. Michelle Dickinson from New Zealand and Jewella aka Dr. Jenine Beekhuyzen from Australia.
Superheroes STEAM ahead!
27 February 2015, 6pm - 8pm
Neon Foyer, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland
This event is free for school girls and the recommended age is 13 to 18 years old. Each girl is encouraged to bring their mum, or someone mum-like in their life to this event.
Apart from the inspirational speakers, Nanogirl and Jewella, there is also going to be a small career fair.
At the end of the event each girl will be given a free book to take home:
Help the superheroes reach the girls!
It's going to be a large event with an impact, and a lot of work has been done already:
- We were lucky to secure a free venue, where we can host more than 300 girls and their mums.
-
We have also secured the help of FutureInTech in spreading the word to schools.
- Our fantastic superheroes speakers have agreed to dedicate a lot of their time to coming to this event.
- We have even run a successful pilot event at Serato and received awesome feedback from parents.
But we still need your help for:
- $1000 - Food & drink for ~300 people during the evening to make it more welcoming
- $700 - Flying in Jewella from Australia (all other costs are sorted)
- $300 - The PledgeMe fees, general costs of running the event of this scale, ticketing etc.
If we end up raising more than our goal, we will continue running similar events in the future.
If you are a company, and there is something specific you could sponsor (cupcakes, drinks, schwag) let us know, we would be grateful for any help.
Why STEAM ahead?
The motivation came from noticing how few girls come to The Mind Lab classes available to kids from as young as 4 years old.
Mothers, and female caretakers in general, often aren’t aware that science and tech are a desirable career option for women, because there are simply not enough role models.
They don’t bring to their daughters’ attention such opportunities, and as a result, girls don’t discover their interest in these fields, and don’t continue to study and work in STEM.
We are also following a new trend of adding Arts in the middle of STEM, to highlight the importance of creativity and design in the fields that girls sometimes see as dry and boring.
At STEAM ahead they will find out that's not at all the case!
Our speakers
Michelle Dickinson
Invisibility and invincibility are two superpowers that Dr. Michelle Dickinson always dreamed of as a child, and is still trying to achieve them through setting up her Nanomechanical testing laboratory at the University of Auckland.
With a background in fracture mechanics Michelle is formally trained in breaking engineering components, but is passionate about devoting her life to breaking sterotypes, through her science communication media work on National TV and radio.
Michelle has worked with billionaires and brilliant minds, offering her input into ways to harvest solar energy and create cheap and accessible drinking water as well as helping to design technologies for a sustainable future.
A competitive kitesurfer, casual rock climber and practicing martial artist, Michelle works hard to inspire females to push the boundaries in both science and sports and to encourage sustainable living through engineering design.
You can see Nanogirl in action on the TV from time to time and learn about the projects she is involved in here:
Jenine Beekhuyzen
Jenine (aka Jewella) is an entrepreneur and the Founder of the Tech Girls Movement, a non-profit to inspire girls into technology careers. She produced Tech Girls Are Superheroes and Tech Girls are Chic! free books which have received widespread success.
She is also a part-time academic and is the CEO of her own research consulting company Adroit Research.
Dr Beekhuyzen serves in voluntary roles at the United Nations and has research collaborations in Europe.
She has awards for her university teaching and her research internationally, she is a “rising female star in Australian Tech” (Sydney Morning Herald newspaper 2014), and the 2014 AIIA Queensland ICT Woman of Year.
http://www.techgirlsmovement.org
http://www.techgirlsaresuperheroes.com
Organizer
Alyona Medelyan
Alyona had not seen a computer until the age of 16 and had even dropped out of Maths in high school. But this didn’t stop her from deciding to dedicate her career to Natural Language Processing the moment she found out about this fascinating field of AI.
After getting a Masters in Linguistics and a PhD in Computer Science, she has worked in several companies in the US, Germany and New Zealand, before starting her own company Entopix. Her skills are in high demand and she has an array of happy clients around the world.
She is also a mum of a very active one and a half year old girl and is enjoying the flexibility her career choice has given her.
Alyona started the STEAM ahead initiative after becoming the Google Anita Borg Scholarship Ambassador for Australia and New Zealand. She believes STEAM ahead events, such as this one, are a perfect opportunity to spread the word about awesome career choices to both girls and their mums.
Alyona has successfuly organized two events before:
- STEAM ahead at Serato - a similar evening to this one, with 50 attendees
- NZ CSRSC 2007 - a 3 day conference with 100 attendees
Comments
Updates 1
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Pledgers 20
20/02/2015 at 11:18am
18/02/2015 at 1:51pm
12/02/2015 at 2:15pm
10/02/2015 at 2:31pm
"The Skills Organisation believes in empowering young kiwi women to achieve greatness in STEAM industries. We proudly support this event."
09/02/2015 at 6:44pm
09/02/2015 at 6:43pm
08/02/2015 at 6:03pm
"Westpac is happy to support more girls to study technology related subjects and the great work that STEAM is doing."
08/02/2015 at 5:54pm
04/02/2015 at 9:48pm
04/02/2015 at 4:15pm
04/02/2015 at 11:42am
03/02/2015 at 4:23pm
"Hooray!"
03/02/2015 at 10:10am
03/02/2015 at 9:05am
03/02/2015 at 8:54am
02/02/2015 at 2:00pm
02/02/2015 at 1:57pm
02/02/2015 at 1:30pm
"Awesome work! "
02/02/2015 at 8:42am
29/01/2015 at 5:14am
Followers 4
Followers of Superheroes STEAM ahead!
Superheroes STEAM Ahead!
Project 2015-01-20 22:14:47 +1300
STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.
STEAM ahead is a series of career events that educate school girls and mums about possible career choices in these fields. Each event showcases careers of successful women who explain what they do and how they got there. Each event also promotes after-school activities that help educate girls and keep up their interest.
This time, we are planning a very special event... an event that uses the power of Superheroes to promote careers in STEAM. The event will feature two talks from two very special female superheroes: Nanogirl aka Dr. Michelle Dickinson from New Zealand and Jewella aka Dr. Jenine Beekhuyzen from Australia.
Superheroes STEAM ahead!
27 February 2015, 6pm - 8pm
Neon Foyer, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland
This event is free for school girls and the recommended age is 13 to 18 years old. Each girl is encouraged to bring their mum, or someone mum-like in their life to this event.
Apart from the inspirational speakers, Nanogirl and Jewella, there is also going to be a small career fair.
At the end of the event each girl will be given a free book to take home:
Help the superheroes reach the girls!
It's going to be a large event with an impact, and a lot of work has been done already:
- We were lucky to secure a free venue, where we can host more than 300 girls and their mums.
-
We have also secured the help of FutureInTech in spreading the word to schools.
- Our fantastic superheroes speakers have agreed to dedicate a lot of their time to coming to this event.
- We have even run a successful pilot event at Serato and received awesome feedback from parents.
But we still need your help for:
- $1000 - Food & drink for ~300 people during the evening to make it more welcoming
- $700 - Flying in Jewella from Australia (all other costs are sorted)
- $300 - The PledgeMe fees, general costs of running the event of this scale, ticketing etc.
If we end up raising more than our goal, we will continue running similar events in the future.
If you are a company, and there is something specific you could sponsor (cupcakes, drinks, schwag) let us know, we would be grateful for any help.
Why STEAM ahead?
The motivation came from noticing how few girls come to The Mind Lab classes available to kids from as young as 4 years old.
Mothers, and female caretakers in general, often aren’t aware that science and tech are a desirable career option for women, because there are simply not enough role models.
They don’t bring to their daughters’ attention such opportunities, and as a result, girls don’t discover their interest in these fields, and don’t continue to study and work in STEM.
We are also following a new trend of adding Arts in the middle of STEM, to highlight the importance of creativity and design in the fields that girls sometimes see as dry and boring.
At STEAM ahead they will find out that's not at all the case!
Our speakers
Michelle Dickinson
Invisibility and invincibility are two superpowers that Dr. Michelle Dickinson always dreamed of as a child, and is still trying to achieve them through setting up her Nanomechanical testing laboratory at the University of Auckland.
With a background in fracture mechanics Michelle is formally trained in breaking engineering components, but is passionate about devoting her life to breaking sterotypes, through her science communication media work on National TV and radio.
Michelle has worked with billionaires and brilliant minds, offering her input into ways to harvest solar energy and create cheap and accessible drinking water as well as helping to design technologies for a sustainable future.
A competitive kitesurfer, casual rock climber and practicing martial artist, Michelle works hard to inspire females to push the boundaries in both science and sports and to encourage sustainable living through engineering design.
You can see Nanogirl in action on the TV from time to time and learn about the projects she is involved in here:
Jenine Beekhuyzen
Jenine (aka Jewella) is an entrepreneur and the Founder of the Tech Girls Movement, a non-profit to inspire girls into technology careers. She produced Tech Girls Are Superheroes and Tech Girls are Chic! free books which have received widespread success.
She is also a part-time academic and is the CEO of her own research consulting company Adroit Research.
Dr Beekhuyzen serves in voluntary roles at the United Nations and has research collaborations in Europe.
She has awards for her university teaching and her research internationally, she is a “rising female star in Australian Tech” (Sydney Morning Herald newspaper 2014), and the 2014 AIIA Queensland ICT Woman of Year.
http://www.techgirlsmovement.org
http://www.techgirlsaresuperheroes.com
Organizer
Alyona Medelyan
Alyona had not seen a computer until the age of 16 and had even dropped out of Maths in high school. But this didn’t stop her from deciding to dedicate her career to Natural Language Processing the moment she found out about this fascinating field of AI.
After getting a Masters in Linguistics and a PhD in Computer Science, she has worked in several companies in the US, Germany and New Zealand, before starting her own company Entopix. Her skills are in high demand and she has an array of happy clients around the world.
She is also a mum of a very active one and a half year old girl and is enjoying the flexibility her career choice has given her.
Alyona started the STEAM ahead initiative after becoming the Google Anita Borg Scholarship Ambassador for Australia and New Zealand. She believes STEAM ahead events, such as this one, are a perfect opportunity to spread the word about awesome career choices to both girls and their mums.
Alyona has successfuly organized two events before:
- STEAM ahead at Serato - a similar evening to this one, with 50 attendees
- NZ CSRSC 2007 - a 3 day conference with 100 attendees
Comments
You need to pledge to see this update.
20/02/2015 at 11:18am
18/02/2015 at 1:51pm
12/02/2015 at 2:15pm
10/02/2015 at 2:31pm
"The Skills Organisation believes in empowering young kiwi women to achieve greatness in STEAM industries. We proudly support this event."
09/02/2015 at 6:44pm
09/02/2015 at 6:43pm
08/02/2015 at 6:03pm
"Westpac is happy to support more girls to study technology related subjects and the great work that STEAM is doing."
08/02/2015 at 5:54pm
04/02/2015 at 9:48pm
04/02/2015 at 4:15pm
04/02/2015 at 11:42am
03/02/2015 at 4:23pm
"Hooray!"
03/02/2015 at 10:10am
03/02/2015 at 9:05am
03/02/2015 at 8:54am
02/02/2015 at 2:00pm
02/02/2015 at 1:57pm
02/02/2015 at 1:30pm
"Awesome work! "
02/02/2015 at 8:42am