Technology is prevalent across every aspect of our lives today and will continue to play an even more significant role in the careers and personal lives of future generations. A large majority of children in school today will work in jobs and use technology that doesn’t even exist yet!
Everything we do for the children in our lives aims to prepare them for a happy and successful future ahead. To ensure that all children are able to participate in the jobs of the future, we need to educate and excite them about technology, and the people who develop it, from an early age. It’s also critical that we have diversity in the workforce that designs, creates and implements our technology to make sure that it works for everyone.
For the past 6 years, I have had the pleasure of working for Tech She Can. Tech She Can is a charity on a mission for women to be equal members in creating and developing the new technology, business, products, and services that shape our world, ensuring technology works for us all. Educating and inspiring the next generation of technologists is a core objective for Tech She Can. We do this through our Tech We Can programme of free learning materials and experiences which aim to inspire all children, but especially girls, to consider a future career in technology.
As Head of Education and Learning, my role at Tech She Can is to lead our team of educators who design and deliver educational resources and experiences to inspire the next generation. I joined the charity just after its inception and I am incredibly proud to have played a pivotal part in helping our reach and impact to grow across the UK and beyond. We have now directly reached over 120,000 children and indirectly 400,000+ children have accessed our resources in classrooms or at home with their teachers and parents.
As a teacher, with over 10 years experience at both primary and secondary level, my work with Tech She Can has helped me discover both a strength and passion for bridging the gap between education and industry. I’m passionate about ensuring children understand how their interests and hobbies can help guide them on their future career path. My role also enables me to help industry unlock and access the wealth of amazing and diverse talent we have in schools across the UK, where for many of the children, they don’t aspire to have roles in certain industries as they simply do not know they exist!
In my personal life I am a very proud wife and mother to a son and daughter. I practise what I preach at home and instill in them daily that their race, gender, background etc will not limit them in their aspirations for the future. I am incredibly fulfilled in my role and the impact I am able to have through my team and Tech She Can as a whole. I would like to ensure every child understands the breadth of possibilities and opportunities which are out there for them and I have made it a personal mission to continue working on this. Children can’t aspire to be what they don’t know exists, and this is where I am proud to lead a team and work with colleagues who make such a phenomenal difference.