Dr Claire Thorne
Co-CEO, Tech She Can
Sheridan Ash
Co-CEO and Founder, Tech She Can
Technology continues to shape our world, but women are not equally represented in its development. Only one in four workers in technology are women, dropping to one in ten at leadership level.
Access to technology talent is now critical, costing the UK economy £60 billion annually.
Closing the tech ‘inspiration gap’ and ‘aspiration gap’
Many children are simply unaware of opportunities in technology or how to get there. Gender and disadvantage exacerbate this. Harmful gender stereotypes of STEM careers start earlier than even we suspected: before primary school.
Tech’s image problem and talent problem go hand-in-hand.To create a world that works for all we must start young and target generational change. We must enable reforms at every stage of education together with culture change in the workplace while addressing societal perceptions of who works ‘in’ tech and who creates, tests, regulates, deploys and applies it.
We’re training children for skills they won’t need, for jobs they won’t do. To prepare young people for life and realise opportunity for all, the UK needs a long-term vision for change: a modern, agile STEM curriculum with inspiration at its core, embedding technology across subjects, plus sustained, inclusive careers education — embedding a ‘little and often’ approach to industry engagement.
This requires equitable access to STEM-qualified expertise in all classrooms, equipping teachers to encourage children to be tech-curious and championing ‘hooks’ into STEM that reflect the UK’s thriving sectors.
Many children are simply unaware of
opportunities in technology or how to get there.
Bridging education and industry engagement
Initiatives focused only on one part of the pipeline, or a particular region, are not enough. To reimagine STEM careers inspiration, we need commitment, leadership and partnership across and within government, education and industry — UK-wide, from primary age and beyond.
At Tech She Can, the tech careers inspiration charity, we are working in partnership with over 250 industry members spanning over 40 sectors because tech is everywhere. This allows us to deliver school programmes for free.
Inclusive tech careers inspiration by teachers, for teachers
Tech She Can designs and delivers free cross-curricular learning resources and experiences. These include: en masse live, virtual tech assemblies reaching tens of thousands of children; in-depth behind-the-scenes workplace insight days for hundreds of disengaged girls; industry-relevant teacher CPD (continuing professional development) for all subject teachers; a national Champion scheme and CSR (corporate social responsibility) volunteering where we train and match relatable industry role models into UK classrooms.
In our first three years, we’ve directly reached over 120,000 UK children, with over half a million engaging online globally. Support us to scale. Our ambition is to reach every UK child throughout their schooling.
