Girls Who Build

Solution Summary

The gender gap in engineering stems from two major problems: a lack of female role models and a lack of engineering curricula designed for girls. Girls Who Build fills these gaps by developing hands-on, applied engineering curricula to inspire girls to pursue STEM careers.

Girls Who Build provides these online curricula to users for free, and also leads workshops for a fee on MIT’s campus and at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory for teachers and students. With themes like music, wearable tech, camera physics, and robotics, learning is fun and engaging. The workshops prepare girls with the skills they need to succeed in an engineering career.

Market Opportunity

• Women are an untapped resource in the growing field of STEM, making up only 25 percent of its workforce.
• While less than one percent of girls plan to study computer science in college, 76 percent of girls become interested in engineering when they are shown what engineers do.

Highlights

• Launched Girls Who Build Music Tech Workshop for hands-on intro to music technology
• Recently received 501(c)3 status

Organization Goals

• Manufacture and sell the engineering kits used in coursework

Existing Partnerships

Girls Who Build currently partners with:

• MIT Lincoln Laboratory
• MIT OpenCourseware
• Solidworks
• Society of Women Engineers

Partnership Goals

Girls Who Build seeks partners to support:

• Technology access, STEM education, future of work
• Funding to continue building business