Girls’ STEM Day inspires students at TNMOC
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One hundred female students were inspired to take up careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) at The National Museum of Computing.
Arriving from all over Britain, they learned about the variety of STEM opportunities open to them, met female role models in STEM careers and, through hands-on activities and team work, gained insights of the nature of the jobs to which they can aspire. From code breaking to cyber-threat control, they learned of the career opportunities that await.
Peter Membrey, a software engineer and a sponsor of the event since its inception, said, “Having seen the success of the previous STEM Girls’ Days, I leapt at the chance to help fund it again. It has become an annual event and I am fully supportive of the Museum’s plans to develop and expand the idea in future years.”
Ali Kennedy of Sophos, attending and supporting the event to encourage girls to enter technology careers, said, “We need to ensure that the people creating our technology solutions are representative of the population and that females have an equal opportunity to take part in the jobs of the future. To promote gender diversity in the technology industry, Sophos supports dedicated groups in many countries and was one of the founding members of #TechSheCan charter that commits organisations in the UK to increase the number of women working in technology roles.”
Andrew Herbert, chairman of TNMOC, said, “Our economy would be greatly enhanced if more females brought their particular skills to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Far too often these subjects are almost male preserves, yet the impact of women in the field is clear to any who works with them. The annual Girls’ STEM Days at TNMOC show young school students just what they can aspire to – they usually depart the Museum with a much-widened horizons and aspirations.”
At the STEM Girls’ Day, Sophos, a leading cyber security group, introduced the participants to the role of encryption in cyber security with a fun activity to break basic encryption to reveal hidden messages.
Education training specialist Tablet Academy in association with the RAF Cyber Warfare Team challenged the girls in a simulated race against time to shut down the operations of a cyber terrorists intent on disabling the country’s air traffic control and early warning radar. In an exciting and all-to-real simulation game, the students used a battery of tools to try to nullify the threat.
Several female TNMOC volunteers helped out on the day demonstrating to the youngsters that the world of technology awaits them and encouraging them to explore the diversity of careers that are open to them.
Notes To Editors
About The National Museum of Computing
Now fully open Tuesdays to Sundays, 10.30 am to 5.00 pm.
The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park in Block H, one of England’s ‘irreplaceable places’, is an independent charity housing the world's largest collection of functional historic computers, including reconstructions of the wartime code-breaking Colossus and the Bombe, and the WITCH, the world's oldest working digital computer. The Museum enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s and beyond.
The Museum runs a highly successful Learning Programme for schools and colleges and promotes introductions to computer coding amongst young people to inspire the next generation of computer scientists and engineers.
Sponsors of the Museum have included Bletchley Park Science and Innovation Centre, Fujitsu, InsightSoftware.com, Paessler AG, Sophos, Issured, Lenovo, Bloomberg, Ocado Technology, Ceravision, CreateOnline, 4Links, Google UK, IBM, NPL, HP Labs and BCS.
For more information, see www.tnmoc.org and follow @tnmoc on Twitter and The National Museum of Computing on Facebook.
Media contact
Stephen Fleming, Palam Communications
01635 299116
s.fleming@palam.co.uk