STEM WOMAN

Solution Name:

STEM WOMAN

One-line solution summary:

Educational-inclusive processes for women's participation through vocational guidance from STEM strategies and transit to university.

Pitch your solution.

Reducing gaps and promoting gender equity through vocational orientation towards university science and technological training programs targeting the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4 R.I) from STEM-focused professional university programs.

The existence of barriers associated with the lack of gender equity, limit the possibilities of development and competitiveness of communities by increasing the inequitable conditions that prevent women from contributing and projecting their academic or labor potentials aimed at the globalization of inclusive education.

Reducing gender gaps in educational career paths at the technical, technological and professional level associated with university programs in 4. R.I with STEM focus, project vocational guidance targeted at access to higher education aimed at meeting the millennium goals through the closing gaps offered by science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

What specific problem are you solving?

In Colombia, betting on a career related to science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) is a minority path to the famele gender. Despite advances in STEM approaches to school education, women continue to face significant obstacles in career access.

The general trend in access in THE STEAM science, engineering technology or math programs at the university is only 2 or 2.5 out of 10 students in a group of 30 students. This highlights the need to generate vocational orientation processes in the female gender towards the university and STEM approach.

According to Unesco figures, only 28% of the world's researchers are women and according to UN Women (Flabbi et al, 2016 at UN Women, 2017, p. 113), "only 4% of companies in Latin America and the Caribbean have a female General Manager. It can be indicated the need to promote inclusive education with a STEM approach where vocational orientation in basic school education is the benchmark for access to higher education with a view to being part of the 4.0 economy.

What is your solution?

A space is proposed that allows to generate a link of women in the development of the city from primary, secondary and technical middle education in order that, from the concept of equity and equality, they are projected to the educational processes viewed from a STEM approach and the humanities through vocational tests and presentation of university programs for continuity to higher education.

Promote the institutionalization of the STEM WOMAN program on an annual basis, where female students of technical secondary secondary education from official educational institutions present their visionary or structured projects for their academic, research or productive future through robotics, software programming, web design and other fourth industrial revolution programs.

Create a space that evaluated the vocational orientation of students through specialized software by identifying student profiles in 4RI programs.

Generate educational logistics, which allows modeling an agenda, an investment and a vocational intervention with secondary school students, the technical average of official educational institutions that allows them to show their productive ideas.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our goal is the entire female population of school age, in Medellín, Colombia, urban and rural, that do not have motivational spaces that encourage them to choose stem-related subjects or careers.

In Medellín, a pilot called STEM WOMAN has been carried out; between August and November 2018, the project focused on promoting vision educational spaces and processes with STEM approach was implemented, through vocational tests and presentation of university programs for continuity to higher education.

 It is intended to reduce inequality in access opportunities in STEM fields of knowledge and work, generating spaces in which women recognize different fields in which they can develop professionally,, showing the female potential where meaningful models and projects can be proposed that allow to manifest imagination, creativity, technical and technological development where female human talent and structure a dynamic designed to show the best of women found in secondary education to higher education.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge and your selected dimension.

Being a STEM woman in our region represents a number of challenges from the first years of education to the consolidation of a career. In this context, we want through practical and motivational spaces to make women decide to choose studies with STEM approaches and help inspire hundreds of other women to dedicate themselves to these fields.

To be considered relevant to contribute to the socio-affective dimension and to the consolidation of the BEING through gender equity and the assessment of opportunities in science engineering and mathematics programs, promoting inclusion in the context Citizen.

What is your solution’s stage of development?

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Who is the primary delegate for your solution?

Secretaría de Educación de Medellín