Ada Lovelace Day Panel Event: Championing Success and Avoiding the Echo Chamber #WiSTEMspotlight

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Join us on 6th October from 6.30pm at our London HQ for our next Spotlight event, a free evening of talks discussing issues around women in STEM and what we can actively do to make a difference.

This event is part of a series hosted by Digital Science to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day and will look at: Championing Success and Avoiding the Echo Chamber.

Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). For the last few years, October marks a busy month for Digital Science, littered with celebratory blog posts, online events, physical events and poetry (you can read summaries here).

This year, Digital Science is proud to be sponsoring Ada Lovelace Day Live! again, this time at The IET on the 11th October. More details about that event can be found here. In the build-up to this event, we will also be featuring a collection of stories from a handful of talented men and women in STEM.

Our event on 6th October will provide an opportunity to learn from an inspirational panel with a focus on how we can champion success and avoid that echo chamber. The panel will consist of researchers, journalists, and advocates in the STEM fields.

The discussions will shine a positive light on the current situation and we’ll hear from advocates, mentors and take a look at how these activities can be improved and sustained. We hope for a lively Q&A session to round off the discussions.

Stay tuned for further information, we’ll likely announce the lineup in the next few days, but you can register for an early bird spot here and keep an eye on the social hashtag #WiSTEMspotlight.

What will be discussed?

The evening will form an open discussion, but we really want to look at the following issues:

• Women and men working in STEM – What is driving the slowing pipeline for women studying STEM subjects at university? Is it really that bad?

• Role models and mentors – How do we get more role models and how do we encourage people to mentor – what initiatives exist and can we do more?

• Media – How are women in STEM viewed in the media, can we change / help these perceptions?

• Future – How can we actually make a difference rather than just continue talking about issues?

Here are some previous blog posts to give you a taster – if you would like to get involved, please do get in touch.

1. Research Evaluation’s Gender Problem – and Some Suggestions for Fixing It – Stacy Konkiel 
2. Parity at the Podium: Why We Need More Women Speakers – Lauren Kane, Alice Meadows
3. Scholarly Publishing Demographic Survey Reveals Major Diversity Challenges in Scholarly Publishing – Laura Wheeler