20 May 2020
#STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, #STEMingUPSpotlight, Girls in STEM, STEM Spark, STEMingUPSpotlight, Success

How STEMing UP Program helped Jada Chang learn more about the entrepreneurial spirit that lead her to pursue various projects

STEMing UP is one of hEr VOLUTION’s primary programming, dedicated to preparing young women for a successful career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic) industries.

This 4-week intensive course teaches participants valuable technical skills, as well as critical thinking abilities to enable them to succeed and achieve their goals into becoming impactful participants within the STEM industries.

Jada has attended our program in 2019 and she’s currently in grade 12 and will be attending the Software Engineering program at York University in September 2020. Since STEMing UP, Jada has been given the great opportunity to give back as a hEr VOLUTION Ambassador, while she works part-time at her family’s bubble tea shop. Additionally, Jada is a private computer science tutor and a Canada Learning Code Ambassador. Furthermore, Jada was the Schulich Leader Scholarship nominee and U of T Book Award Winner for her school, and a Canadian Affiliate Winner of the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing.

We asked Jada to share her experience in the program and this is what she had to say:

Question: What was the most valuable aspect you learned from the STEMing UP?

Answer: I think one of the most valuable things I learned from STEMing UP is the importance of an entrepreneurial spirit. Many of the guest speakers were founders of their own startups, and their dedication to their ideas lead to their success. This inspired me and made me realize that if I believe an idea can make an impact, I should pursue it and make it a reality. This has lead me to start building many of my own projects and exploring various ideas. A current project of mine is a desktop buddy application called an ukagaka ghost (an animated character that “lives” on a computer desktop and interacts with the user) with self-care reminders, focus timers, dialogue interactions, and various other features. More

13 May 2020
#STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, #STEMingUPSpotlight, Blog, Girls in STEM, STEM Spark, STEMingUPSpotlight, Success

How STEMing UP Program gave Lee-Anne Oghide the confidence to pursue her own post secondary pathway to success

STEMing UP is one of hEr VOLUTION’s primary programming, dedicated to preparing young women for a successful career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic) industries.

This 4-week intensive course teaches participants valuable technical skills, as well as critical thinking abilities to enable them to succeed and achieve their goals into becoming impactful participants within the STEM industries.

Lee-Anne Oghide has been in the program in 2018 and 2019 and she’s currently going into Interaction Design Program in the fall of this year (2020) at George Brown College, and recently completed Media Foundation Program at Humber College. We took a moment to ask Lea-Anne to share her experience in the STEMing UP Program and here is what she had to say:

Question: What was the most valuable aspect you learned from the STEMing UP?

Answer: Career pathways aren’t always straight. Many of the guest speakers from both years changed their degrees, went to grad school for something else, or taken classes at places like HackerYou or BrainStation. It helps me feel more comfortable about going to college before university. More

06 May 2020
#STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, Awards, Blog, Girls in STEM, Media, STEM Spark, STEMingUPSpotlight, Success

How Arianne Ghislaine Rull went from STEMing UP to getting the CAN-NCWIT Award

STEMing UP is one of hEr VOLUTION’s primary programming, dedicated to preparing young women for a successful career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic) industries.

This 4-week intensive course teaches participants valuable technical skills, as well as critical thinking abilities to enable them to succeed and achieve their goals into becoming impactful participants within the STEM industries.

Arianne Ghislaine Rull, enrolled in the STEMing UP Program 2019 and expected to return in 2020. She currently enrolled at L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute for SHSM in ICT. While her opportunity in the STEMing UP Program, Arianne is presently part of the website formation team along with Marki Sveen, Ashley Edmundson, Shirley Wu, Yusra Hassan, Mashal, and Yathusha Ramanarajah. As a team, we are developing a Shopify website for Kym Nylz. After secondary school, I am planning to pursue Computer Science. Arianne was also a recipient of the CAN-NCWIT Award for Aspiration in Computing.   More

05 May 2020
#GivingTuesdayCA, #STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, Blog, Fundraising, Girls in STEM, GOstem, Media, STEM Spark, Success

This #GivingTuesdayNow we’re making STEM education accessible to everyone! Together!

COVID-19 has had a hugely negative impact on all aspects of daily life, including impacting the economy and is creating unexpected challenges for communities. Unfortunately, underserved and marginalized communities are bearing the largest impact and are facing even greater barriers to equitable access to education than before.

Through our outreach work in these communities, we have found that:

  • 1 in 4 high school-aged girls do not have a computer at home
  • 12 out of 30 students in our program do not have access to a home computer 

During our GO!stem and STEMing UP programs, we teamed up with companies such as Salesforce and Shopify in order to provide participants with laptops. Additionally, during the STEM Summer Program, we teamed up with Sky’s The Limit Youth Organization in order to provide the young women with donated laptops. The young women were able to take these donated laptops and bring them to local libraries or community centers to access the internet should they not have available wifi at home.

We understand the importance of access to technology both inside and outside the classroom. Especially given that all schooling is being delivered online for the foreseeable future access to computers inside the home has never been more important.

We are very proud of the young women who have participated in our programming in the past, and we are proud to have been able to partner with organizations that support the mission of accessibility to education. However, we need to go further and ensure that access to technology goes beyond access to laptops. Our current mission is to expand access to the internet in the homes of those who cannot afford it. According to Statistics Canada, 29% of people struggle to afford and access the internet in their homes. This leaves a massive gap in the population where individuals cannot access valuable information and tools for learning.

We invite you to join us and make a contribution to our project to help deliver online learning to the most vulnerable population in our communities.

 

How others help hEr VOLUTION this GivingTuesdayNow

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29 Apr 2020
#STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, #STEMingUPSpotlight, Blog, Girls in STEM, Media, STEM Spark, STEMingUPSpotlight, Success

What Dhwani Vaishnav learned about herself in the STEMing UP Program

STEMing UP is one of hEr VOLUTION’s primary programming, dedicated to preparing young women for a successful career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic) industries.

This 4-week intensive course teaches participants valuable technical skills, as well as critical thinking abilities to enable them to succeed and achieve their goals into becoming impactful participants within the STEM industries.

Dhwani Vaishnav, a 2018 STEMing UP graduate, is currently in grade 12 and will be pursuing engineering next year.
Dhwani has taken a big interest in entrepreneurship! She is the co-founder and president of Vesta Jewellery, a handmade resin jewelry company. Dhwani is also a social media intern at The Sci Squad, a STEM non-profit. Although a busy teen, Dhwani took a moment to share her experience of the STEMing UP Program.

Question: What was the most valuable aspect you learned from the STEMing UP?

Answer: The most valuable thing I learned from the STEMing UP program was how to accept criticism constructively. In the past, I may have accepted criticism but internally, felt slightly hurt by the ‘hate’ I thought I was receiving. The STEMing UP program teaches you technical as well as non-technical skills, and along with that learning undoubtedly comes failure. For the first time, I took those failures and improved on them rather than ignoring them. This has served me well in many other facets of my life, and it is something for which I am so grateful to have learned when I did. More

22 Apr 2020
#STEM4Every1, #STEMingUP, #STEMingUPSpotlight, Blog, Girls in STEM, Media, STEM Spark, STEMingUPSpotlight

How STEMing UP Program prepared Sanaa Syed for her career success

STEMing UP is one of hEr VOLUTION’s primary programming, dedicated to preparing young women for a successful career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic) industries.

This 4-week intensive course teaches participants valuable technical skills, as well as critical thinking abilities to enable them to succeed and achieve their goals into becoming impactful participants within the STEM industries.

We took a moment to ask Sanna Syed, a successful 2018 graduate to share her experience of the program. Sanna is currently enrolled at Carleton University, studying a degree in Computer Science and working as a Dev Degree Intern at Shopify.

Question: What was the most valuable aspect you learned from the STEMing UP?

Answer: Learning about marketing was very valuable to me. I am a computer science student. I was creating products and systems in school, and while I was familiar with the backend process, I was new to the customer relations aspect. I was grateful that STEMing UP didn’t just focus on teaching the creating and backend process, but provides a full scope of skills every step of the way.

 

Question: What did you learn with STEMing Up that you don’t think you’ll be able to learn elsewhere?

Answer: The importance of staying informed. It may be a very simple task, but with STEMing UP, we were provided with researches, information and taught how to analyze it deeply to help us perform our tasks better. I feel anyone can read the news and articles, but to actually learn how to look for a deeper meaning of what the media portrays has been very useful.

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