Science Summer Camps for Girls to Find their Passion
- Pre-Seed
Provide a variety of activities in science and engineering designed for high school girls who come from low-income families. Girls will have the opportunity to participate in real-life science in an exciting way and they will talk with women in science that will help them to decide their future careers.
Over the time, the gap between the number of boys and girls who wants to pursue a career in science and engineering increases and by the time they have to decide for a career only a small group of girls will chose a science field. Girls usually lose interest in science and engineering because they become less confident on their abilities to perform in these fields due to a lack of motivation and experience. In our program, we aim to improve their confidence by fun and exciting activities in science and engineering especially design for them where they can get involved and gain practical skills. Furthermore, we also believe in the importance of role models, so the program will introduce girls to women who work in STEM. These women will be mentors who will share not only their education and career path but also will help and support our girls in their career decision. In addition to that, in the app and the website we are developing for our program we want to keep their attention and interest by fun online activities and experiments that they can do at home. In the app we will periodically published the life of women in science around the world and will also create a community of girls interested in science women working in STEM. The online community will bring both women and girls around the world who are working or interested in STEM fields and find support, motivation, mentorship and opportunities to participate in more activities in science and engineering.
Some studies conclude that the principal factor affecting the number of women in science and engineering is their life choices such as having children or that they prefer areas like art and humanities. Furthermore, girls have less chance to have experience in science and engineering because the general perception that women underperform at these fields. These opportunities are greatly reduced in girls from low income families. If we provide them with the right information and support during, girls will have better tools and knowledge to make better life choices.
Our theory is inspired on the phrase “You can’t be what you can’t see”. Over time, the gender gap in STEM areas increases because girls lose confident on these fields due to absence of motivation and practical experience. We aim to improve their confidence with exciting activities and the inclusion of role models (Women in STEM) as mentors. Both the app and website will help to keep the interest by building an online network where women and girls will find support, motivation and opportunities to participate in more activities in science and engineering.
For the pilot our target is 100 high school girls and minimum 20 women in online community. By the end of 2018, our target is to have more than 1000 girls and women taking our program. The impact of our solution is to create and inspire more and more girls and bring more opportunities for all women as well as guide them such they can decide with total confidence their career. The overall outcome is to reduce the gender gap in science and engineering and provide a quality program and an online network mentorship.
The outcome are measured in terms of tracking downloads and people who subscribed to the program. - By the end of 2017 have 30 mentoring women and 100 high school girls.
The outcome are measured in terms of tracking downloads and people who subscribed to the program.
- By the end of 2018, our target is to have 1000 girls and women taking ours programs.
Locations in three different countries. - By the beginning of 2019 increase our online community and have 3 locations USA, Mexico and Edinburg.
- Adolescent
- Lower middle income economies (between $1006 and $3975 GNI)
- Low-income economies (< $1005 GNI)
- Short-cycle tertiary
- Female
- Europe and Central Asia
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- US and Canada
- Consumer-facing software (mobile applications, cloud services)
- Digital systems (machine learning, control systems, big data)
- Management & design approaches
- Physics
- Robotics
The abilities that world needs today are different based on the constant change of environment, technology and new information. Teaching our girls doing repetitive task and memorizing the concepts are part of an old educational system. Therefore, when someone gets involved in the process of learning, they can understand better and have deep knowledge that will be very hard to forget. We want to teach with a new education model based on exploring and experience what they learn. Our solution includes the process of learning is experiential and enjoyable based on the possible areas of their interest.
This program is specifically designed for girls from low-income families who have had very little experience in STEM fields. Additionally, the app and website will build an online community to inspire more women and girls, as well as recruit more volunteers to sow and spread the idea of help and inspire more women to improve their opportunities. We believe that the girls in this program could become the roles models of the future participants which will help to growth the online network.
Girls will not have to pay for the program because they are low-income.
- 0 (Concept)
- Non-Profit
- Mexico
Our non-profit Business Model Canvas is composed by key partners will be volunteers, scholarships programs of companies and schools and strategic alliances with government financial. They will support or donate the key resources like computers, hardware, laboratories or classrooms in high schools. The key activities are the events, diffusion campaigns, workshops to learn to code with the platform “scratch.mit.edu” and build a robot with raspberry pi hardware, classes to build rockets, talks with role models and mentorships. The customer relationships will be supported by the channels of communication like personal contacts in high schools, universities, website to keep their attention and interest and more publications in our social medias. The customer segments are teenage girls with low-incomes. The cost structure is composed basically by administrative and fixed costs. Finally, the outcomes streams are inspiring more girls to dare to practice science.
Do not find sponsorships or funding as well as resources to perform the program.
- Less than 1 year
- 3-6 months
- 6-12 months
We are driven by the desire to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields and create equal opportunities for girls from low-income families in vulnerable ages. We are looking to learn to learn from the remarkable community in MIT Solve and use it as the platform to build our pilot and in the future become a leading program to support women in science and engineering.
University of UNAM - Faculty of Engineering - CU - Mexico City
Looking partnership in Providence - Boston area (Brown University)
Looking partnership in Edinburgh (University of Edinburgh)
Fernanda Bolaños PhD Brown UNI
Rosinda Fuentes PhD Edinburgh UN
Flor Aguilar, UNAM
Computer Engineer
PhD student, The University of Edinburgh
PhD student