More funding needed for 'girl geeks' in STEM

According to Girl Geek Academy, more action needs to be taken to increase the number of women and girls in STEM.

The federal government's "Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review" won't be complete until the end of this year, and the academy has said that this is too long to wait for new program funding.

"With 'Women in STEM' programs under review for most of this year, we currently don't anticipate any new funding commitments until 2024. The government's third year in office is far too late to wait, we need action now," said Sarah Moran, Girl Geek Academy co-founder.

"While we are supportive of the review of Women in STEM programs and hope it eventuates in more funding made available in the long term, we cannot ignore the short-term fact that women and girls are falling behind.

Ahead of the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February), the United Nations highlights that in cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, only one in five professionals (22%) is a woman.

Girl Geek Academy trained over 1000 high school girls in AI in virtual classes without government support and had been hopeful that a change of government would bring about fresh funding to support the growth of similar programs.

"There has been a drought of these type of programs as most organisations, typically run by women, have not survived the impacts of the pandemic. Girl Geek Academy lost 99.9% of our cash flow overnight when COVID hit and the only reason we still exist is because I went and got a day job to keep us alive,” Moran said.

"The government must act, as we know women and girls have already slipped too far behind. We're calling for a solid investment in programs for the May Budget to secure much needed support for women in industry to 'lift as we climb' — we desperately need to bring young girls through the pipeline."

According to the United Nations, despite a shortage of skills in most of the technological fields driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, women still account for only 28% of engineering graduates and 40% of graduates in computer science and informatics.

"Girl Geek Academy were successful recipients of the inaugural Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship grants in 2016. We used this funding to build the successful #MissMakesCode program and teaching 1000 teachers to teach coding in the classroom. Over the past seven years, there have only been four rounds of this funding deployed. That's simply not enough," Moran said.

Businesses will soon be gathering around Australia to discuss action for International Women's Day on 8 March — the theme for which is "Cracking the code: innovation for a gender equal future".

Based on the priority theme for the United Nations 67th Commission on the Status of Women, "Cracking the code" highlights the role that bold, transformative ideas, inclusive technologies and accessible education can play in combatting discrimination and the marginalisation of women globally.

"We need more than words and cupcakes this year, we need the government to have our back so we can all crack the code on gender equality together," Moran said.

Image caption: Girl Geek Academy co-founders Amanda Watts, Lisy Kane and Sarah Moran using 3D printers built by fellow co-founder April Staines.