Laura Kirsop | FutureLearn
Laura Kirsop is a former teacher and teacher educator who is now a Senior Product Manager at FutureLearn. Her main passion lies in increasing opportunities for young people in STEM.
For seven years she worked as a primary school teacher, coordinated ICT and mentored trainee teachers. She led a number of initiatives to improve digital skills, including getting students blogging and coding.
This work led to her getting involved in Code Club, a nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs. In her role as Head of Code Club UK she oversaw curriculum design, evaluation, partnerships and community management. She worked closely with funders such as Google, Nesta and Samsung on a number of high-profile projects.
She then moved on to become a Senior Product Manager at FutureLearn, a social learning network that has over 5 million users worldwide. Here she leads the Learner Experience team - an interdisciplinary team focussed on increasing learner participation and improving pedagogical tools.
In her spare time she trains teachers to deliver the new Computing curriculum and produces and co-hosts an edtech podcast called Book Smart. She also volunteers for charities that improve the digital skills of young people.
Sophie Gould | LexisNexis UK
Naomi Thompson | Goldsmiths, University of London
Janice St John-Matthews | University of the West of England
#Hellomyname is Janice St. John-Matthews. I am the Associate Head of Department for the Allied Health Professions at the University of the West of England, Bristol. I am a registered diagnostic radiographer. When I was 18 I left my home in Ireland and moved to the UK to peruse my dream career. After spending a decade working clinically and in industry I joined academia. I currently oversee five radiography programmes consisting of three pre-registration and two post-registration courses alongside standalone continuing professional development activities for all allied health professions.
I am passionate about working at the University of the West of England due to its ethos of inclusivity. As someone who comes from a widening participation background I know first-hand how education can empower and the difference equality in expectation can make. As an individual with dyslexia I also appreciate how a supportive environment can ensure every learner achieves their potential. Each year I work with extraordinary students, who have joined higher education through non-traditional education routes. Those studying radiography leave as a credit to both the University and the profession. I am proud to be part of this.
Evidence from the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education has highlighted the lack of women in senior posts in academia for various reasons. For me this is being a mum to a small child with minimal extended family support. I was finding networking, collaborating and publishing difficult to balance with caring responsibilities. To address these challenges, I started to use social media outlets to raise the profile of the radiography profession, to write frankly about the challenges of dyslexia and to share my experiences as a part-time Doctoral candidate. Subsequently I have been able to connect with individuals across the world and this has led to opportunities to present and publish nationally and internationally.
Isla Macneil | Ingenues Ltd
In the past year I have started Ingenues, a not-for-profit company working to inspire young children and in particular girls to look at a wide range of potential careers. These work by showcasing inspirational women by showing them women from a variety of backgrounds who have achieved feats in their industries.
Prior to this, I have a background in widening participation, working as an Assessor of Study Needs for Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) and completing workshops in the wider community both through Ingenues and in the past. working with a refugee community group.
On a personal basis I am also a mother and step-mother to three children.
Benny Bonsu | Girls in Sport Foundation
Natalie Scott | St Joan of Arc School
Natalie has always been passionate about education, she has taught secondary English for 16 years now, in recent years as an Advanced Skills Teacher, Lead Practitioner, Specialist Leader of Education and more recently leading on whole school T&L. She has been part of leadership teams lifting schools out of special measures and has taught in the illegal refugee camps of Northern France, and thoroughly relished both of these challenges.
Her career had been defined by her work in the classroom with teenagers, in a variety of school contexts, and in school leadership. She believed passionately in the training and supporting of her colleagues- until she made the heartbreakingly difficult decision to quit education, unable to align her ethos to the school she found herself in. After losing her way and pondering on next steps, she was offered the opportunity to volunteer with Edlumino, a charity providing education to the children living in the refugee camps of Europe. It was in some of these camps that Natalie re-found her passion for teaching, blogged of her experiences and rediscovered the true power of education. She saw her students’ lives changing and felt her own life change too. She has since returned to the English education sector and is now is back teaching full time, very happily, in a school in Hertfordshire, England.
Jaspreet Sangha | St Marylebone School
Jaspreet Kaur, better known as Behind the Netra for her poetry is a spoken word artist from East London focused on sharing her thoughts on gender issues, historical topics and taboo subjects both in the Asian community and wider society. By day, she is a History teacher at a secondary school in central London, with an academic background in both History and Gender Studies. Her work aims to tackle issues related to gender discrimination, mental health stigma, decolonisation and more. As well as performing poetry, Behind the Netra also provides workshops and motivational talks for all ages.
Over the last year she has performed at different shows around London including Box Park Shoreditch, Theatre Royal London, Oxford University, SOAS Uni, Paul Robinson Theatre, City Hall and shows for charity events for women's issues and charities such as What You Do Matters, Newhams Asian Women's project, Billion Women and others. More recently she performed at the NHS annual conference and spoke at TEDxUCLWomen. It's been an incredible year for Behind the Netra, being in the national #thriveon advert with Idris Elba, working with the UN on the HeforShe campaign and being nominated for the BAME Inspiration of the Year Award for her work in poetry and teaching. The end of 2016 brought Behind the Netra the title of one of the Top 10 Inspirational Sikh Women in the UK.
Miisa Mink | DrivenWoman
Miisa Mink is a founder and chief-doer at DrivenWoman, a members’ network that helps women define their own success, become accountable to their goals and make dreams happen. DrivenWoman was founded with a mission to provide women a forum where they can take control of their own destiny and not simply rely on their environment to change.
As part of her global campaign to provide the right environment to empower women to follow their dreams, Miisa created the Festival of Doers, a one day seminar aiming to encourage women not just to get inspired but to put plans into action and step outside of their comfort zone.
Miisa is an inspiring public speaker, a serial entrepreneur and a published author. She lives in South East London with her husband and twin sons.
Naomi Bennett | Planet Nation
Naomi is a lesbian woman on a mission to empower lesbian & bisexual women and to strengthen the LGBT community in her home borough of Lewisham. She is particularly passionate about ensuring all members of the community get support, including those working at grass roots levels or in minority areas that often get overlooked.
Naomi actively networks in the community and is always linking people up to facilitate collaboration as she believes that we are much stronger united.
Naomi is a firm believer that as women we can achieve a lot if they are empowered to believe in ourselves. She is proud to support women with learning new skills, gaining experience and increasing confidence. Many of her volunteers have taken the skills learnt through being a Planeteer and applied them to new careers.