Today is a special day! It’s the 13 October and marks Ada Lovelace Day (ALD), a day of international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
Celebrations will take place today across the globe, with an aim to increase the profile of women in STEM and, in doing so, create new role models who will encourage more girls into STEM careers and support women already working in STEM.
The festivities will also include dozens of grassroots events around the world, organized entirely independently from the ALD Live! event. However this main event will take place tonight at Conway Hall, London, organized by ALD founder Suw Charman-Anderson. ALD Live! promises to be an entertaining evening of comedy and music suitable for women and men, and girls and boys.
Digital Science, a proud sponsor of ALD Live!, will also mark the bicentenary of Ada Lovelace’s birth with a programme of activities, blogs and celebrations, including an expert panel event in London on the 14 October with scientists, technologists and mentors in the STEM fields (you can tune in on Twitter using #WiSTEMspotlight).
Share your role models
One of the inescapable challenges facing many women who do work in STEM is often the lack of recognition, practical support networks and resources.
In light of this, for the month of October Digital Science are running a series of blog posts where inspiring women and men in STEM are sharing their personal female role models.
Anyone can get involved and we are encouraging you all to share your role model on social media using the hashtag #MySTEMrolemodel
Jon us this week to celebrate Ada Lovelace day & share with us your STEM role models on #MySTEMrolemodel #ALD15https://t.co/LmAl9kgUOE
— Digital Science (@digitalsci) October 12, 2015
We hope this hashtag will offer a resource to help inspire, motivate and educate others in STEM!
What happens next?
In September, Digital Science announced our latest ‘Catalyst Grant’ award, offered to the team at Ada Lovelace Day to reach its next milestones.
This will help it to achieve its goals to launch two innovative online, interactive tools to help advance women’s achievements in STEM subjects.
There will be a new events database, which will make it easy for organizers to share their ALD events, and for participants to find celebrations near them.
A further resources database will provide easy access to essential information for women in STEM, including details of professional and grassroots organizations, funding opportunities and relevant research.
Finally, if you want to find out more about why initiatives like ALD matter, including some practical advice on how we can tackle the problems that currently exist, I urge you to check out Suzie Gage’s blog post published today in The Guardian.
Happy Ada Lovelace day all – and why not celebrate yourself by sharing your own role model?
Read more about Ada Lovelace in Laura’s previous blog post here.
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