See What You Can Be champions Australia’s extraordinary female changemakers who are blazing new pathways across the STEM sector.
At InnovationAus, we have met hundreds of Australian women carrying out significant, and often ground-breaking, work in STEM. We have told their stories to the technology industry for over five years but now want to champion the valuable stories they have to tell to our future female leaders.
This powerful storytelling platform highlights the achievements of those changing the world – the scientists developing future cancer breakthroughs, data scientists mining for commercial gold, mechanical engineers building our critical infrastructure, and cybersecurity experts keeping the nation safe – and encourages the nation’s students to challenge outdated stereotypes.
Read the stories or watch Series 1 and 2.
Our guests include women from culturally and language diverse backgrounds, indigenous women and women from different generations. The first guests to sign up for See What You Can Be include: Geek Girl Academy CEO and co-founder, Sarah Moran; IT veteran and the founder of Females in IT and Telecommunications (FITT), Ann Moffat; cryptographer, known for her work on secret sharing, cryptographic protocols, and the security of electronic voting, Vanessa Teague, and her protégé Eleanor McMurtry; Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Investment Director focused on investing to solve climate change, Katerina Kimmorley; Program manager for the Indigenous STEM awards, Astronomy ambassador of Sydney University, and Australian of the Year finalist, Karlie Noon; Director at Australian Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre (AusSRC), Karen Lee-Waddell; Scientific futurist, tech influencer, author, drone expert, associate professor, Dr Catherine Ball,; Lecturer, Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies & Statistics, ANU College of Business and Economics, Dr Priya Dev; and advisory at blockchain startup Othera and blockchain advisor to ABT Associates, Loretta Joseph.
Are you an educator? Book your school in for a See What You Can Be session.
Are you a Girl in STEM? Do you have a fantastic journey that would make an interesting story within the series? Get in touch.
FAQs
Why is InnovationAus doing this?
In our five years of reporting on technology and innovation in Australia, we have met hundreds of Australian women carrying out significant, and often ground-breaking, work in STEM. We have told their stories to the technology industry but want to champion these valuable stories to our future female leaders.
Girls will be important creators of future technology and they need to know the potential career opportunities available within the STEM sector. We want them to see women who are working in fields they had not yet considered and see STEM as an exciting outlet for their current and future passions.
How are we different?
We are the storytellers. While we know it is important to educate girls on the opportunities offered by STEM, we will leave that to the educators. We will keep telling the stories.
As an industry publication, we have a large network of women working in STEM all keen to tell their stories. We will keep doing this until the happy day when women are flourishing in tech and innovation.
Why just for girls?
Boys are welcome. We do, however, focus on girls because we know participation rates for girls in STEM studies remain low and often STEM subjects are not viewed favourably among this demographic. So we want to show how STEM is just the start to a world of new careers – from drones to med tech, agtech to data science, to aeronautics and robotics, and so many other areas yet to be created!
What has been the reaction so far from the industry?
The women we have approached to date – from cryptography leaders to game developers and astrophysicists – have been incredibly supportive and are more than happy to give their time to inspire future leaders.
A range of other organisations have contacted us about collaboration and partnership opportunities. From the outset, we have been clear that our role is a ‘storyteller’ that can recount the journeys of those who have broken barriers, and use them to connect and inspire. There are a lot of great organisations that deliver practical modules to schools, and we want to support them rather than compete with them.
Read Corrie McLeod’s interview with MediaConnect.com for a better insight into why she is so passionate about Girls in STEM.
Education partner
We have also partnered with Cool Australia to make the recordings and assets available to teachers all over Australia as resources, should they fit elements of their teaching focus.
Mapping STEM Champions is a new initiative from InnovationAus.com – we are going to map all of the programs that have been designed to support and encourage better participation of women in STEM careers. Our aim is to get better visibility, collaboration and coordination of the initiatives so that we can better connect the networks and their energy. There are a lot of people doing brilliant work – our ambition is to enable them to more easily pull together in the same direction. Read more