YPSILANTI – For every 100 jobs in information technology, information assurance and cyber security, only 12 are filled by women. On Nov. 4 at the Eastern Michigan University Student Center, a day-long conference will show 330 middle school girls that carriers in STEM can not only be lucrative, but also fun and rewarding,
Keynote speakers are Neelima Ramaraju, Director of the Global Impact Team at Llamasoft; and EMU alumnus Stephanie Price, a software engineer at Promess. The day’s program runs from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Topics for the day’s breakout sessions include CSI & Chemistry, fashionlogy-technology and fashion, building and designing your own website, building your own motion detector, robotics, cyber safety, Google coding, orthotics and prosthetics, gaming and drones. The EMU College of Technology is hosting the event.
“Recruiting and supporting the young women the U.S. needs in the fast-growing technology and computer science fields requires strong commitment, leadership and coordinated efforts from educators, relevant organizations and the business community,” said Bia Hamed, program manager. “This event encourages and engages female middle school students to take an interest in technology careers while giving them an opportunity to meet and network with professors and students.”
The College of Technology holds a similar event for high school girls each spring. The Digital Divas conference was founded in 2010 by Gerald “Skip” Lawver, a former professor in the College of Technology, with the goal of connecting young women to opportunities in the fast-growing technology and computer science fields
The middle schools attending include: Stout Middle School-Dearborn, St Clair County Middle Schools (combined group), Old Redford Middle School, Boyd W Arthurs Middle School-Trenton, Tecumseh Middle School, Dexter Middle Schools (combined group), Pontiac Middle School and Hazel Park Junior High – Clinton Township.
For more information on the conference, see the Digital Divas website. If you would like to donate to the program, see The EMU Foundation Website. For more information about the College of Technology programs, visit the College of Technology homepage.
