Session: How to fix tech's leaky pipeline? Focus on pre-teen and teen girls.
Research has shown that that girls’ interest in technology drops dramatically between the ages of 11 and 16 (compared to boys). We at imagiLabs have decided to focus on this critical age range. Our goal is to engage girls when they are most likely to be interested in tech and use the power of community as well as shared passions to maintain their engagement as they get older. Our thesis is that by providing tools and a sense of inclusion at the right age, and doing so through a scalable solution, we can contribute to equipping and empowering the next generation of female engineers, developers, and tech founders.
Bio
imagiLabs is the brainchild of Dora’s Master’s thesis and it was incubated through KTH’s Innovation Hub. Dora studied Human Computer Interaction at KTH in Stockholm. She also has a Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Computer Science from New York University Abu Dhabi. Dora worked as a developer at Morgan Stanley and as a UX Designer at Cisco. She has years of experience teaching programming to children and teenagers as well as advocating for women in technology. True to her name, Dora (as the explorer) has lived, studied and volunteered in 10 countries across 4 continents over the past 7 years. She is originally Hungarian. Along with working to bring technology closer to girls, Dora also works as a yoga teacher - bringing mindfulness closer to engineers.