Thanks to our fellow hosts Knowledge4Innovation and all of the panelists who participated in today’s Twitter Chat on achieving gender equality in STEM.
There were great contributions from the panel, which consisted of two Members of the European Parliament, Ivana Maletić and Angelika Mlinar; Katherine Manuel – Senior Vice President, Innovation, Thomson Reuters Foundation; Douglas Morrison, STEM & Innovation Lead at City of Glasgow College; Alev Canoglu, Founder of Female Tech Leaders; and Nick Diamond, comms manager at the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech).
And a special thank you to our Impact Comms Lead, Carlotta De Toni, for moderating the Twitter Chat.
Here’s a flavour of some of the comments our panelists made:
Ivana Maletić Gender diversity is essential for creativity, innovation, productivity and competitiveness. The inclusion of women promotes scientific excellence and boosts the quality of STEM outcomes. Hiring women is a good business.
Angelika Mlinar The current social & cultural norm pushing male & female students into different fields needs to change by informing women of all ages about existing & growing opportunities & encouraging them in pursuing their interests in STEM fields.
Katherine Manuel We have so much left to discover. Think of a friend suffering from cancer or a debilitating learning disability. Why not have more people with more perspectives working to solve some of our greatest societal challenges? #womeninSTEM It just makes sense.
Douglas Morrison Educational Institutes need to do more to demasculinise course descriptions and content. There are a number of good examples of this. Limiting pre-condition of school based STEM subjects as criteria to access further and higher education STEM subjects is helpful. #womeninstem
Alev Canoglu Imagine the additional potential, brainpower, discoveries and innovation we’d gain If we had as many #womeninSTEM as we have men!
Nick Diamond Engage men to close gender gap – not just a women’s issue. Closing gap asks men to change mindsets + continue convo about gender diversity in STEM. Change makers must improve products, practice user-centered design + develop tech that considers gender #womeninSTEM #Hack4Her
Check out @innovatorsmag and @k4innovation and the hashtag #WomenInSTEM for some more of the views shared on Twitter
