Technicians Make it Happen

Guest post by Tori Blakeman, Technicians Make It Happen.

Our country’s 1.5 million technicians are the linchpins of the economy. We rely on technicians day-to-day and they are crucial to the success of many of our country’s future-growth areas, including the aerospace, chemical, digital, engineering and manufacturing industries. Despite their diverse skills being critical to the UK’s performance in the global business arena, we are facing a growing skills shortfall.  

The Technicians Make it Happen campaign, led by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, is trying to rectify this. The campaign is raising awareness and perceptions of the role technicians play in driving the UK economy to encourage and inspire young people, their teachers and parents, to consider the benefits of a career as a technician.

The campaign highlights the numerous exciting roles technicians hold through case studies of technicians from diverse industries including music, gaming, aerospace, film, automotive, fashion and more.

Many inspiring women technicians from an array of industries are celebrated in the campaign. Here are just four of them:

Sally is a Horticultural Technician at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens. She grows specimens for the University’s cutting edge plant science experiments.

 

 

 

 

Yao is a Senior Quality Assurance Manager at Kolak Foods. She is responsible for quality control of the various food products Kolak produce, including popcorn, and manages the analytical laboratory.

 

 

 

dhanishaDhanisha is a Laboratory Technician at Newcastle University. She provides lab support to a multi-university research project into psoriasis, whilst maintaining the lab and teaching lab techniques to new students.

 

 

 

emma

Emma is an RAF Instructor. She teaches new RAF recruits about hydraulics and how to work with engines.

 

 

 

 

Technicians Make it Happen is successfully bringing technicians into the spotlight. To explore more technical careers, or to find out more about the campaign, visit the website, or follow @Technicians_mih on Twitter.

If you know an inspirational technician, or you are a technician yourself, why not tweet us @FindingAda with the hashtag #techniciansmakeithappen to tell us how technicians make it happen in your life.

Peterborough STEM Festival

PeterboroughSTEMFest2016_IMG_9294_webOur friends Digital People in Peterborough (DPiP), in partnership with Allia Future Business Centre, are once again running Peterborough STEM Festival for 2017. The event is an opportunity to promote digital careers and science, technology, engineering and maths to young people.

Inspired by Ada Lovelace Day, they would like to particularly encourage those less represented in STEM, like girls, women and other social community groups. It is both family-oriented and free to attend.

PeterboroughSTEMFest2016_IMG_9332_webThe festival itself incorporates both a school’s day on Friday 29 September 2017, for STEM workshops and challenges, and a festival on Sunday 1 October, with demonstrations, activities and talks from STEM professionals.

Peterborough STEM Festival is dependent entirely on sponsors and volunteers, and they are looking for companies and businesses, particularly those in the Peterborough and Cambridgeshire area to help them with funding. It would be a great way to contribute to the local community, and they have a range of sponsorship packages available.

Ep 11: Nanotech, the coffee filter, and how computers search

iTunes | Google Play | RSS (Soundcloud) | Stitcher

Welcome to the Ada Lovelace Day podcast, highlighting the work of women in STEM. Each month, we talk to women from around the STEM world about their careers, as well as talking to women and men, about historic and modern women’s achievements, discoveries, and inventions.

In this episode

00:31: Nanochemist Dr Suze Kundu explains how she’s using nanostructures to extract energy from sunlight.

25:13: Our invention this month is at once both mundane and essential — it’s the coffee filter!

28:12: Dr Sue Black OBE, the founder and CEO of #techmums, talks about the work of computer scientist, Karen Spärck Jones.

Dr Suze KunduOur interviewees

Dr Suze Kundu

Dr Suze Kundu is a teaching fellow at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Surrey. A nanochemist both literally and professionally, Suze’s research focuses on materials that can capture solar energy. Suze is a passionate science communicator, giving regular public lectures at schools, universities and science festivals.

You can follow Suze on Twitter @funsizesuze. Photo: Paul Clarke

Dr Sue Black OBEDr Sue Black OBE

Dr Sue Black OBE is a technology evangelist, digital skills expert and social entrepreneur. A champion for women in computing, she founded BCSWomen, the UK’s first online network for women in tech, and #techmums, a social enterprise which empowers mums and their families through technology. Sue has also published Saving Bletchley Park, about the successful campaign that she led to save Bletchley Park.

You can follow Sue on Twitter @Dr_Black, and can find out more about her on her website.

Melitta BentzDiscovery of the Month

This month, we look at the story of the coffee filter, invented in 1908 by Melitta Bentz who patented her invention and launched her own company.

Competition

This month, we’ve got a signed copy of Dr Helen Czerski’s Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life, to give away. In this, her newest book, Helen uses physics to answer some vexing questions, such as why does it take so long for ketchup to come out of a bottle? And, how do ducks keep their feet warm when they’re walking on ice?

Storm in a TeacupTo take part in this competition, just leave a comment on our Facebook post about this episode of our podcast, and let us know which woman in STEM you most admire! Get your answer in by midnight on 30 April, and we’ll let the winner know via Facebook.

If you want to see Helen talking about her book and her work, then get yourself along to the Scarborough Book Festival at the end of April, the Hay Festival in May, and the British Humanist Association Convention in June. More details on Helen’s website!

Thanks to our sponsor

This podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ARM, our exclusive semiconductor industry sponsor. You can learn more about ARM on their website at ARM.com and you can follow them on Twitter at @ARMHoldings.

If you would like to join ARM as a sponsor of the Ada Lovelace Day Podcast, please email us.

Get in touch!

If you’d like to send us feedback about the show, or if you’d like to take part, please email us. We’re especially interested in hear from men who would like to talk to us about the women in STEM who have influenced them, especially those women who are less well known.

Credits

Episode edited by Andrew Marks.

Our links

Video

Hidden Figures screenwriter Allison Schroeder talks to Helen Keen

For the latest episode of her podcast, Adventures of Space and Tim, Ada Lovelace Day alumna Helen Keen spoke to screenwriter Allison Schroeder about her film Hidden  Figures. The box office smash hit tells the remarkable true story of Katherine G Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three brilliant African-American women whose work at NASA was instrumental in putting John Glenn into orbit.

Keen talks to Schroeder about her favourite scenes, what it was like to mix space-fact and fiction, and the huge impact the film is having, particularly on younger audience members. She also discusses her feelings of optimism for the future of STEM, and also Hollywood. (Read more on the shortage of women in STEM affecting the UK and diversity in Hollywood (PDF).)

Allison Schroeder

Writer Allison Schroeder arrives on the red carpet for the global celebration of the film "Hidden Figures" at the SVA Theatre, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016 in New York. The film is based on the book of the same title, by Margot Lee Shetterly, and chronicles the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson -- African-American women working at NASA as “human computers,” who were critical to the success of John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission in 1962. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Allison Schroeder is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Hidden Figures draws on her personal history, growing up near NASA in Florida where both her grandparents worked and then she interned herself at NASA for many years.  Schroeder also has a musical pilot in development at Universal Cable and a feature, Agatha, is in development at Paramount. Her other credits include the musical Side Effects, 90210 and Mean Girls 2. She is the Co-Chair of the WGA Women’s Committee and serves on the WGA Diversity Advisory Board.

Both of Schroeder’s grandparents worked at NASA in Cape Canaveral as engineers, first on the Mercury, then Apollo missions.  Her grandmother, who was one of the first women in mission control, stayed on for the shuttle missions as well.

When Schroeder was in 8th grade, she was selected for NASA’s NURTURE program, attending special sessions at Cape Canaveral and learning a variety of things from programming to how the shuttle worked.

She later attended Stanford, majoring in Economics, which was also heavy in maths.  Although she is now devoted to her career as a writer, she still does maths — most recently breaking out the latest WGA statistics on hiring for women and minorities into a variety of user-friendly charts and graphs.

Adventures in Space and Tim

This interview is part of a series of Adventures in Space and Tim podcasts exploring the space industry and inspired by Tim Peake’s Principia mission to the International Space Station. It is supported by the UK Space Agency and the International Centre for Life. Previous guests on include first Briton in space Helen Sharman, former space flight director Libby Jackson, and nanochemist and science communicator Dr Suze Kundu.

Ep 10: Elen Gwynne & Prof Jim Al-Khalili OBE

iTunes | Google Play | RSS (Soundcloud) | Stitcher

Welcome to the Ada Lovelace Day podcast, highlighting the work of women in STEM. Each month, we talk to women from around the STEM world about their careers, as well as talking to women and men, about historic and modern women’s achievements, discoveries, and inventions.

In this episode

00:42: Computer programmer Elen Gwynne talks about how she transitioned from astrophysics to software.

20:50: Discovery (Invention!) of the Month – The Compiler

24:45: Professor Jim Al-Khalili OBE talks about the first woman to become a professor of physics in the UK, Professor Daphne Jackson.

Elen GwynneOur interviewees

Elen Gwynne

Elen Gwynne is a software programmer in London. She studied astrophysics at Edinburgh, where she was introduced to computer programming. After a programming based summer placement, she decided to take up programming as a career.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili OBE

Jim Al-KhaliliJim Al-Khalili is a theoretical nuclear physicist, author and broadcaster based at the University of Surrey in England. He received his PhD in nuclear reaction theory in 1989 and has published over a hundred research papers in the field. He is a well-known presenter of TV and radio in Britain and his many popular science books have been translated into 26 languages. He is a recipient of the Royal Society of London’s Michael Faraday medal and the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal. In 2016 he received the inaugural Stephen Hawking medal for science communication. He lives in Southsea in Hampshire with his wife Julie.

Jim has two new books out, Aliens: Science Asks: Is There Anyone Out There? and Quantum Mechanics (A Ladybird Expert Book), and you can listen to him interview a wide variety of women (and men!) in STEM in The Life Scientific on BBC Radio Four.

You can find out more about Jim on his website or Wikipedia, and can follow him at Twitter @jimalkhalili.

If you’d like to to know more about Professor Daphne Jackson you can take a look at her Wikipedia page, and if you’re a woman in STEM thinking about returning, take a look at the Daphne Jackson Trust website.

Discovery of the Month

More of an invention than a discovery, the first compiler was written in 1951 by mathematician and programmer Grace Hopper, who would go on to become a Rear Admiral in the US Navy. She also suggested as early as 1949 that computer programming languages might use English keywords.

You can read an imagined conversation with Hopper on the Libertine website.

Thanks to our sponsor

This podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ARM, our exclusive semiconductor industry sponsor. You can learn more about ARM on their website at ARM.com and you can follow them on Twitter at @ARMHoldings.

If you would like to join ARM as a sponsor of the Ada Lovelace Day Podcast, please email us.

Get in touch!

If you’d like to send us feedback about the show, or if you’d like to take part, please email us. We’re especially interested in hear from men who would like to talk to us about the women in STEM who have influenced them, especially those women who are less well known.

Credits

Episode edited by Andrew Marks.

Our links