Explore Science, London

Project name:  Explore Science

Project location: London

Website: http://www.explore-science.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/explorscience

Project description:

Explore Science invites a scientist each month to talk about their research and inspire the younger generations (girls) to be aware of all the exciting opportunitties in the field of sciences from an astrophysicst from MIT to a biologist at KTN, research scientist from yahoo, founder of a robotics startup using AR/VR to name just a few of the scientists that are inspiring the future scientists 17% growth in demand for STEM jobs.
The average median hourly wage for STEM jobs is $37.44.
Only 36% of all high school grads are ready to take a college-level science course.
In 2020, there will be an estimated 1.4 million computer specialist job openings.
Women earned only 17% of computer and information sciences bachelor’s degrees in 2014.

The aim is to showcase women in leading roles in STEM and thus encourage other schools, government and employers to take positive action of inclusion and diversity.
I also made a documentary about it for UN Women , featuring women from Facebook, IBM, Mayor of London Office to name a few https://medium.com/@shwetalshah/women-at-the-forefront-of-gender-balance-539faac2a763

Goal and purpose of the project:

In the next 2 years the organization would have given 24 free public lectures, touching 3000 new people. it would have developed after school science programmes for 2 more areas. Created 10 partnerships with organizations such as Nasa Space Apps, UN Women, o2 Think Big, WTA education service, it is via these partnerships that I would have a further expansion and start an Explore Science chapter in India.

Code First Girls, Stemettes, Developher to name a few that are addressing the lack of girls in STEM, however they organize workshops and field trips, but not specialist lectures giving students a chance to meet real scientists
 

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

Growing up science came easily to me, however I was discouraged from studying it further, 5 years down the line after finishing my academics I ended up working in tech and found myself to be one of only a handful of or sometimes the only woman in a room full of men, that made me realize the issue I had when I wanted to pursue science too, access and inclusion are the biggest barriers women face in STEM and something needed to be done about it and hence I decided to create this organization not only helping more women and girls in this industry but also inviting women scientists to talk about their research see how amazing they are and that girls can also be like that and made a documentary on women rockstars for UN Women featuring incredible stories of these women rising from the bottom to now managing a million pound budget for the Mayor or handling the sales in the medtech coming from a small village.
the problem I am trying to tackle by running this initiative is to reduce the fear of STEM amongst young girls , make STEM less elitist, give them access to resources and tools and the right networks to consider these industries, introduce them to real role models and mentors and show the very present science research being undertaken in the labs which text books still stuck in the Einstein white male scientists era don't talk about. How can we ever think of pursuing something when we don't find someone that looks like us do it? Hence this initiative and documentary made (which might be shown at Cannes Lions Award this year) are an effort to tackle those issues and show the real talent women have
 

Use of prize money:

The proposed solution is to do free outreach, by organizing free lectures for girls to attend, to meet the scientists and learn in a fun, non class room/ text book based approach. Making them be part of the process and see the different opportunities STEM offers, where their careers could go by offering practical advice and by creating a mentoring session each time the documentary is screened or the lectures take place the impact of your initiative's work so far?
Tie up with Mayor of London Ambiton Portal , reaching out to 32 borough of London schools opening up more people to be aware of lectures and screening.
The screening has attracted 200 sign ups, IBM have offered to host, UN Women, US Embassy and Mayors office have offered to speak about the action points to get more girls and women in STEM UN Empower Women will embed it in their social media reaching 190 countries and more than 25000 members on their online platform working on womens economic development. This created a woman in Zimbabwe reach out who worked on a similar project to get more girls in STEM to work on a cross border campaign.

With the prize money I would ramp up the outreach to a wider network than just London, start a training programme, partnering with research institutes and provide paid shadow opportunities to young girls to learn about different opportunities.