GE Girls 2019 UCONN STEM Summer Camp: How General Electric Inspires Girls to Pursue STEM Careers

The GE Women's Network runs the GE Girls program, an initiative designed to encourage girls to explore the world of science, technology, engineering, math and STEM careers. The curriculum was created in collaboration with MIT where the first camp was held 8 years ago. This format has been used to reach hundreds of girls and expand the program to 20+ other GE locations over the years.

Volunteers from all functions (Digital Technology, Finance, Risk, Supply Chain etc.) contribute their time to organize the yearly summer camps: coordinating with local public schools for the selection process, ordering supplies, managing logistics and communications so that all girls have a memorable time during the camp.

The GE Norwalk, CT team wrapped up the 7th GE Girls UCONN STEM Camp! Our 30+ GE volunteers inspired middle school girls throughout 4 days: mentoring them on personal introductions, team work and communication skills; constructing high & stable balloon structures, guiding them during organic chemistry experiments, building alka-seltzer canister rockets, putting together solar ovens, assembling electrical boards for their Dance Dance Revolution activity, designing model wind turbines while learning all kinds of STEM concepts.

During the "Hour of Code", apart from learning how to code in Scratch, the girls were joined by two special guests: the President and Vice President of Stamford High School's Girls Who Code club and soon to be STEM college freshmen. Jessica Benkert, the club's President, is a GE Girls UCONN Camp alumni who founded the first Girls Who Code club in her high school.

The girls were first introduced with the history of women in computing starting from the work of Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, the Apollo secret heroes: Margaret Hamilton, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and many others. They then got to hear all the reasons that girls should get involved into learning and loving coding and most importantly never forgetting the importance of diversity to avoid bias in the computer science space.

We are very grateful to have had so many GE STEM leaders interested to inspire our girls during the GE Day part of the camp. Katy Carillo and Haddy Janneh coordinated a fun data analytics activity using Tableau to visualize the quantity of M&Ms by color in each of the girls' M&M bags; apparently blue was the prevalent color.

Kristen Michaud, Sakshi Kamath and Amar Gada showed the girls how helpful Alexa, Google Nest and our very own Treasury chatbot could be to inform humans, while also instructing them on how to set expectations and manage AI wisely.

Mary Jo D'Angelis, Roger Moscova, Nick Chin engaged the girls with an interactive self-learning Salesforce Trailhead "Build your own Lemonade Stand" workshop.

Thanks to Julie Grzeda, Global Director of Early Career Talent Pipeline at GE and one of the GE Girls UCONN Executive sponsors, all the GE Day leaders got to give their presentations in a GENA mascot "What's your superpower?" shirt.

At the day of graduation Ratna Subrahmanyam and Melissa Cohron talked about their STEM career journeys and they also engaged the girls to highlight their favorite camp activities of the week. Olympia Della Flora, Stamford Public Schools Assistant Superintendent, also shared her STEM experience and encouraged the girls to dream big.

Steve Rullo, the GE Capital, Global Operations, Finance CIO, and also one of our executive sponsors for the GE Girls UCONN camp, along with Niccola Whitaker motivated the girls on the importance of STEM; highlighting that the GE Girls camp was only one of the many opportunities available to them in exploring STEM.

Niccola shared her inspiring story of how she was one of the very few girls interested in math and computer science as she grew up in Ireland; how she earned the confidence to pursue her love for technology in university; and how during her tech career she was always open to embracing new opportunities and going after new personal and professional challenges by travelling across the world on her own and with her family.

Among the many other graduation giveaways, Steve surprised the girls with a special Additive 3D printed GE monogram sphere. We hope that they will also read and continue to be inspired by Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World.

It will be my second and last year of co-leading the GE Girls UCONN camp, an initiative that wouldn't be possible without the participation and dedication of all our volunteers. Thanks to their love for STEM and their dedication to this program, many girls have been inspired to embark on an exciting journey to one day become the next generation of women engineers, economists, scientists, technologists, doctors, astronauts and STEM advocates.