Girls Make Tech with Heart, Oct 9, 2021

Presentation: Presentation & Photos

The clouds cleared right on time in Thousand Oaks, California on October 9, 2021, as 114 middle school age girls and 50 parents arrived for the IEEE Buenaventura Girls make Tech with Heart workshops and parents conference, an initiative sponsored by the IEEE Foundation and taking place at the La Reina High School and Middle School. The planning had been done over several months through multiple virtual WebEx sessions. This was the first time in more than 18 months, that the 35 volunteers, IEEE officers of the nine Buenaventura IEEE Chapters, and local educators reunited face-to-face to create for the girls and their parents an extraordinary experience  

“Our event attracted families from 29 different middle schools in Ventura County. All the girls were between age 10 and 13,” explains Deron Johnson, IEEE Sr. Member and the project manager of the event. The theme of the event was sustainability engineering, a topic echoing the IEEE Foundation focus of 2020. Gathered in the gym, the girls chose from a menu of exciting workshops: To name a few, Sun Loving Robot that uses recycled cans or bottles to create solar-powered vehicles; Smart House, an application of Snap Electronics to teach the concepts of sensors, illumination, and power usage; The Helping Hand, the build of a robotic arm and its control unit; Rainbow Chemistry, an introduction to chemical interactions, their side effects, and how to measure them; Much More than Numbers, the discovery of the way numbers reveal themselves and the equilibrium of nature; and Talking to the World, a ham radio and radio wave introduction powered by solar energy. With no more than six students per mentor, each girl was able to get plenty of attention and guidance.

““I really enjoyed speaking to parents about the rich set of resources from IEEE’s Try Engineering portal to engage and inspire their daughters to become the engineers of tomorrow”, shares Dr. S.K. Ramesh, IEEE Fellow.  The dual track offered by the event enabled promoting similar messages about the profession of engineering for women and to talk about sustainable engineering as a mission-driven application of the profession. Parents engaged in hands-on workshops and in conversations about knowledge acquisition: Doug Askegard, IEEE Sr. Life Member reported “parents were intrigued learning how Executive Functions in the student brain aid in, or delay, the learning process”, and Nathalie Gosset, IEEE Sr. Member and organizer of the parents’ program, shared some of the latest research information about brain development in young teens.  IEEE’s mission and the power of Engineering to make a difference for humanity has never been more relevant. It was a day to fuel the mind with the belief that these 114 girls will” Engineer the Future” and lead the way to create a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable world for all. 

Some references:

a recording of Dr. Ramesh’s talk,

a video montage of photos of the event.

Multiple photos for the article in subsequent pages (to enable you to choose)