Introducing the new Finding Ada Network

MentoringLess than a quarter of women in STEM have ever had a mentor, according to a small Twitter survey that we ran in January, yet mentoring is one of the most effective ways for women to develop their career.

That’s why we’ve launched the Finding Ada Network, a new online peer mentoring and knowledge sharing network for women in STEM and advocates who work towards gender equality. Our aim is to provide affordable long-term peer mentorship opportunities, along with actionable advice on careers, skills, advocacy and more, to women whether they work in industry or academia, or aren’t currently working at all.

According to mentorship platform Chronus (about whom you’ll hear more later), mentoring has benefits for both mentors and mentees, with mentors experiencing a six times higher promotion rate and mentees seeing a five time higher promotion rate. Mentees also benefit from the opportunity to improve their personal and professional skills, including improved confidence, communications skills, ability to process feedback and better problem solving. Mentors develop their leadership skills, develop new professional relationships, gain new insights into their industry/field, and experience increased job satisfaction.

So why aren’t more women benefitting from mentoring? In large part, access to mentoring depends a lot on who you work for. Larger companies are increasingly seeing the benefit of workplace mentoring, but for many small businesses it’s both unaffordable to buy in a world class mentoring platform and difficult to provide enough mentors. Indeed, it can be challenging for mentees if your mentor is too close to you in the org chart, stifling the honesty that’s essential for a mentoring relationship to flourish.

With the Finding Ada Network, your mentor could be anyone! It might be someone within the same industry but working for a different company, or someone going through the same career stage or facing the same challenge, or someone with a completely different perspective. Or all three – you’ll be able to have as many mentors as you need, with relationships lasting as long as required.

Phase 1 launching now

The first phase of the Finding Ada Network has already launched to women and advocates in STEM in the UK. Subscribers have access to exclusive content covering careers, personal and professional development, mentoring best practice, advocacy and HR policy, navigating academia and more. And they can also access a private area of our community forum where they can discuss the challenges they face and ask advice from other members in an informal group mentoring context.

Women in STEM and advocates for gender equality in STEM, whether male or female, can enjoy a 40% discount through until the end of July, bringing the cost down to £5.40 a month, or about the same price as a glass of wine or a pint if you’re down the pub, and almost certainly cheaper than the taxi home afterwards!

Ambitious plans

We have ambitious plans for the Finding Ada Network! We are working with Chronus to bring you their best-in-class peer mentorship platform, providing one-to-one mentoring complete with goal setting, scheduling, file sharing and more. Chronus is used by global companies such as Amazon, EY and more, but for most small businesses and certainly for individuals, it’s out of reach.

Once we have a robust community, we’ll be partnering with Chronus to expand our offering so that we cover all four types of mentoring:

  • Traditional: 1-1 mentoring with a (sometimes only slightly) more senior advisor
  • Reverse: 1-1 mentoring for senior staff with a younger advisor, useful for bridging generational gaps
  • Process: Focused on supporting a mentee through a specific process, eg asking for promotion or organising a conference
  • Group: Asking for advice on an ad hoc basis from the wider community

We also plan to expand to the EU, North America and eventually the rest of the world. If you’d like to know when we do, please join our waiting list and we’ll email you as soon as we arrive in your country.

Supporting advocates

There are many mentoring schemes available for women in STEM, but the Finding Ada Network is different, and not least because we are the only mentorship network that recognises the importance of advocates to the mission of realising equality for women in STEM. According to our research, nearly half (48 percent) of women working in STEM also have a secondary role as advocates for gender equality, with only 11 percent of our survey respondents working solely as advocates (and 57 percent of those are men).

The advocates we spoke to in our research told us that they had ended up in their role because they believed it was important work, but that they’d had no formal training and received less support than they would like. We want to change that, and make sure that advocates get easy access to the information they need to do their job, and that they too can benefit from the wisdom of the Finding Ada Network crowd, as well as sharing their own experience and knowledge.

In it for the long haul

Mentorship works best when the relationship between mentor and mentee is given time to grow, to flourish and to deepen. But few people spend their working lives progressing up the ladder within a single company anymore, and increasingly we must turn to portfolio careers, learning to pivot and adapt as circumstances change. Traditional employer-based mentorship schemes fail participants when they change jobs or temporarily leave the workforce for whatever reason and lose access to their mentor.

The Finding Ada Network will create a stable environment for mentorship, so you can take your mentors with you even if you change jobs, or take a sabbatical or career break. Equally, your expertise continues to be valuable to others regardless of where you work or, indeed, if you work. We recognise that life is changeable, so by focusing on online mentoring that’s independent of your workplace, we will create an environment that fosters long-term mentoring relationships, supporting women wherever they are and whatever they are doing.

Support Ada Lovelace Day whilst supercharging your career

One last unique aspect to the Finding Ada Network is that by subscribing, you’re also helping us to inspire the next generation of girls in STEM and promote and support women currently working in or studying STEM via the wide portfolio of work we do year round. Ada Lovelace Day isn’t just a day, it’s a mission, and you can be a part of that mission by becoming a part of the Finding Ada Network.

So subscribe today, and become part of the genesis of something amazing!

Inspiring Science and Innovating Science Award longlists

An amazing selection of women has been announced for the longlist of the women in science research and advocacy awards, run by Nature and Estée Lauder.

The Inspiring Science Award recognises early career female researchers who are doing outstanding work, and our founder, Suw, was one of the judges. On the longlist are:

  • Dr Cara Battersby, who studies how stars are born in our galaxy’s centre at the University of Connecticut, USA
  • Dr Ilano Brito, who is pioneering systems-level methods to analyse the human microbiome at Cornell University, USA
  • Dr María Natalia Lisa, who is investigating signalling pathways employed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina,
  • Dr Shruti Naik, who studies how environmental stimuli collaborate with genetic factors to control immunity in the skin at New York University, USA
  • Dr Mirjana Pović, who studies galaxy formation and evolution, focused on nuclear activity in galaxies at the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute, Ethiopia, and Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Spain
  • Ritu Raman, who is designing synthetic materials that adapt to their environment in the same way as biological materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
  • Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez, who studies how hormones in the brain and body work to make animals, including humans, reproduce at the University of California, Davis, USA
  • Dr Corinna Stefanie Schindler, who studies physical organic chemistry at the University of Michigan, USA
  • Dr Kelsey A Stoerzinger, who studies reactions that convert solar energy into fuels at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Washington State, USA
  • Dr Dawn Tan, who studies the dynamics of light-matter interactions at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

The Innovating Science award honours those involved with encouraging girls and women into science. The women and organisations listed for this award are:

  • Dr Marja Seidel for Cielo y Tierra, empowering girls through science inquiry activities, focusing on rural areas, global
  • Morgan DiCarlo for Civil Engineering Outreach, an outreach program to recruit high school women into engineering, USA
  • Madison Smither for From Student to Scientist and the Emmy Noether Award and Scholars Program, providing science opportunities to students outside of the classroom, and a $75,000 fellowship for a young female scientist to conduct graduate-level research and a mentorship program giving girls the ability to conduct laboratory research, USA
  • Anvita Gupta for LITAS for Girls, helping girls in computer sciences and STEM, USA
  • Dr Aliyah Weinstein for Letters to a Pre-Scientist, demystifying science careers by creating personal connections between students and real scientists, USA
  • Mambepa Nakazwe for Seeds of Change Foundation Zambia, advocating for girls with special needs to take up interest in information communication technology careers and empowers them with entrepreneurship skills, Zambia
  • Yasmin Kroll for Techbridge Girls, championing equality in STEM education and fair access to economic opportunities for all girls, USA
  • Dr Yvonne Commodore-Mensah for The African Research Academies for Women, providing fully-funded research opportunities for young women to complete a Summer Undergraduate Research Program at African universities, Africa
  • Fanni Szigeti for The Association of Hungarian Women in Science, promoting STEM and computer sciences among girls who are under-represented in these fields of education, Hungary
  • Rethabile Sonibare for Thope Foundation, empowering young girls in STEM, South Africa

The shortlist will be announced next month.

US Senate honours Ada Lovelace

US Senator Ron Wyden has introduced a resolution honouring Ada Lovelace and recognising Ada Lovelace Day to the Senate, the upper chamber of the United States Congress. The senator, who represents Oregon, submitted S.Res.592A resolution designating October 9, 2018, as “National Ada Lovelace Day” and honoring the life and legacy of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

The statement is a Simple Resolution, which is “used to express nonbinding positions of the Senate”. These resolutions often “express public gratitude for distinguished contributions; dramatize the virtues of individuals, groups, and causes; and perpetuate the remembrance of significant events” says a congressional report. “During the past two centuries, commemoratives have become an integral part of the American political tradition,” the report says.

We are delighted that Ada Lovelace’s achievements have been recognised in this way, and that the Senate chose to support our mission of raising the profile of women in STEM by giving Ada Lovelace Day itself official status in the US.

The full text of the resolution (PDF) reads:

115TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
S. RES.

Designating October 9, 2018, as ‘‘National Ada Lovelace Day’’ and honoring the life and legacy of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

Mr. WYDEN (for himself and Mrs. FISCHER) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on [25 July 2018]

RESOLUTION

Designating October 9, 2018, as ‘‘National Ada Lovelace Day’’ and honoring the life and legacy of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

Whereas Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace, now known as Ada Lovelace, was born on December 10, 1815, in London, United Kingdom;

Whereas, from a young age, Lovelace displayed a gift for mathematics, languages, and the sciences;

Whereas, at the age of 17, Lovelace began to study mathematics under the guidance of scientist and translator Mary Somerville and, later, logician Augustus de Morgan;

Whereas, in 1833, Lovelace was introduced to inventor and mechanical engineer, Charles Babbage, and began to study his designs for the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer;

Whereas Lovelace was the first person to recognize that the Analytical Engine could be used to manipulate symbols and letters and was the first person to theorize that the Analytical Engine could be used to create music and graphics;

Whereas, in 1843, Lovelace published step-by-step instructions for using the Analytical Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers ‘‘without having been worked out by human head and hands first’’;

Whereas these insights gave Lovelace an unparalleled vision of the future of computer science, and she stated that ‘‘[a] new, a vast and a powerful language is [being] developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind’’;

Whereas the work of Lovelace went widely unrecognized until the 1950s, when her papers were republished, and their significance and her contributions to the fields of computer science and mathematics were finally acknowledged;

Whereas, in the 1980s, to honor the contributions of Lovelace, the Department of Defense named its newly created computer language ‘‘Ada’’ after Lovelace;

Whereas the second Tuesday in October is annually celebrated as Ada Lovelace Day and is intended to honor women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and their accomplishments and contributions to academia and the world; and

Whereas Ada Lovelace died on November 27, 1852, leaving behind a legacy of poetic science and reasoning, in which the arts and sciences are woven together to find new insights:

Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved, That the Senate—
2 (1) designates October 9, 2018, as ‘‘National
3 Ada Lovelace Day’’; and
4 (2) honors the life and contributions of Ada
5 Lovelace, a leading woman in science and mathematics and the first computer programmer.

Senator Wyden tweeted:

And the British Embassy in Washington tweeted:

Join us on 9 October for Ada Lovelace Day!

Want to inspire girls to love code?
Or celebrate women in STEM?

Join people around the world in celebrating the tenth Ada Lovelace Day on Tuesday 9 October and organise your own, independent event for girls or women in tech!

Every year, dozens of groups host their own events to mark the day, create new female role models, and support and encourage girls and women into STEM. These events take many forms — from conferences to Wikipedia ‘edit-a-thons’ to pub quizzes — and appeal to all ages, from girls to university students, to women with well-established careers.

We’ve had events in cities from A Coruña to Zoetermeer, taking in Addis Ababa, Brasilia, Curitiba, Daejeon, Enugu, Florence, Granada, Halley Research Station, Ísafjörður, Johannesburg, Kathmandu, Ljubljana, Maharashtra, New York, Ockham, Pune, Quartu Sant’Elena, Recife, Sheboygan, Tunis, Ulster, Vilnius, Wellington, and York on the way. We only need someone in Xai-Xai, Xalapa, Xinghua or Xo’jayli to organise an event this year and we’ll have a full alphabet!

The enthusiasm with which people across so many countries have adopted Ada Lovelace Day, and the work that they have put in to organise their own events, shows just how widespread the desire is to support and inspire girls and women in STEM. Everyone who organises or attends an event is part of a global movement to champion girls and women in STEM and change the way we think about women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

You can be a part of this global movement by organising your own Ada Lovelace Day event this year. To help you, we’ve put together an Organiser Pack, along with some resources such as blank fliers. We’ve also created a new mailing list just for indie event organisers where we’ll share news and information as it comes in. And you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook to stay up-to-date with all our indie event news.

So, let’s get going and make 2018, our tenth Ada Lovelace Day, the biggest  yet!

 

Supported by

ALD founder to be judge for new women in science award

Ada Lovelace Day’s founder, Suw Charman-Anderson, has been invited to be a member of the judging panel for a new award that recognises excellent in science research by women around the world.

Nature Research and The Estée Lauder Companies have launched two global awards today that seek to put a spotlight on both exceptional achievements of female scientists and those working to promote greater inclusiveness.

The inaugural Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Science and for Innovating Science, in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies, will recognise inspirational early-career female researchers and those who have worked to champion women and girls’ participation in science.

The Inspiring Science Award, for which Suw will be a judge, honours female scientists who have excelled in scientific discovery and have completed their PhD within the last ten years. The Innovating Science Award recognises an individual or an organisation that has led a grassroots initiative to support increased access to, or interest in, STEM subjects for girls and women around the globe.

Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature Communications and judging panel member, said: “Given the inspirational advocacy for gender equality across society we’ve recently seen, it’s more important than ever that we do more to recognise and support the achievements of women in science, and that we encourage girls and women to engage with STEM subjects and pursue scientific careers. These awards will give a global platform to some of these women who may otherwise go unheralded, as well as celebrate the efforts of the leaders – women and men – behind initiatives supporting greater equality in the sciences.

“As Nature Research we are in a unique position to champion the achievements of researchers, and we have a responsibility to drive positive change in the research community. Our journals are committed to supporting gender equality, and we hope that through our connections with the research community we can identify some outstanding individuals deserving of these awards and use our international reach to share their stories.”

Suw said: “The importance of female role models in science cannot be overstated – girls and young women need to see that success is possible for people like them. The Inspiring Science Award will not just recognise excellence amongst women in research – it will also serve to create new role models to encourage girls and young women to consider a career in science.

“Ada Lovelace Day highlights the achievements of women in STEM, so I am delighted to be supporting these awards which will improve the visibility of women in science from around the world. An award that takes a global view and looks for nominees of all backgrounds is long overdue. Equality is not a ‘nice to have’ anymore, it is a ‘must have’, because diverse teams produce better results.”

Lisa Napolione, Senior Vice President, Global R&D, The Estée Lauder Companies and judging panel member said, “As a Company founded by a pioneering woman, supporting other women pioneers is at the core of who we are. We are thrilled to partner on these inaugural awards with Nature Research, an organisation that shares our values focusing on exceptional science and extraordinary scientists.

“We are so proud that more than half of our scientists and engineers in our global R&D teams are women. These scientists have revolutionised research in the beauty industry in a wide range of areas including cellular repair, circadian rhythm and epigenetics in skin. As we look to the future, ensuring a deep bench of research expertise among the next generation in emerging scientific areas is critical. We know first-hand that mentoring, and specifically mentoring of young women, is a strong contributor to long-term success, so we have built a scientific mentoring program into the Nature Research Awards. Our goal is to connect award recipients to scientific experts in their fields who have the unique skill set required to support and accelerate the awardee’s research progress.”

The winners of the awards will be announced in October. Both winners will receive up to $10,000 to spend on initiatives linked to the award and free training from Nature Masterclasses. The Inspiring Science Award winner will also receive grants of up to $5,200 to support open access publication of their research in a Springer Nature journal, and the Innovating Science Award winner will receive up to $5,200 to support events related to their initiative.

Nominations for the awards opened on April 9 and will close on June 11 2018. A longlist of ten nominees for each award will be announced on July 24, and a shortlist of five will be announced on September 4. Full details of the awards’ criteria and nomination processes are available at nature.com/researchawards.

Inspiring Science Award

The Inspiring Science Award welcomes nominations of exceptional female scientists and who are within ten years of completing their PhD. We encourage nominations from around the globe and from all subject areas. Candidates should be nominated by laboratory heads, department heads or someone else from their institute. This award is based on academic achievement, but our independent judging process and panel will ensure that those working in adverse circumstances or in regions where there is limited access to the scientific literature will not be unfairly disadvantaged. 

Innovating Science Award

The Innovating Science Award is open to anyone (individuals and groups) working on projects or initiatives that encourage girls or young women to become more aware of, or engaged in, any STEM subject in any region around the world. Nominations can be made directly by the candidate(s).