SiSTEM Year-In-Review 2023: A ‘Good’ Busy Year

If I had to think of one word to describe 2023 I would say: busy!!

As a neuroscience student, I was taught there is good and bad stress. Similarly, I think there two types of busy: good and bad. And this year has been a GOOD busy for SiSTEM as an organisation.

2023 marked our first year anniversary, saw us hit 1.3K+ followers on Instagram, almost 1K followers on LinkedIn and 100+ on TikTok. We interviewed 23 women in STEM as part of our second Instagram live series (plus our first ever male guest).

We held 6 Events, 5 workshops , took on 18 volunteers/SiSTEM interns, visited numerous schools/colleges/universites, sat on 7 panels, were guests on 5 podcasts and attended a number of events such as the GTA black girl in tech festival, BFDUK afternoon tea and BWIS’ Celebrating you event.

We collaborated with the likes of BNA, In2science, BCS, BFDUK, BWIS, Colouring Construction, King’s College London, Thames water, Morden mirror, LMS MRC, JPreads? (we were even supported by Mighty Malt!) and many more…

Here Are Some Of My Favourite Moments :

Awards

We love award shows, not only are they a chance for us to get glammed up but they’re a source of inspiration and an opportunity to meet some incredible people within and outside STEM.

We had the privilege of attending some prestigious award ceremonies such as the Maker’s Women in Software awards. If you read last year’s review (thank you for still following us!) you would have seen we attended the IET Young women engineer of the year awards for the very first time. We like to call it our debut, as it was our first in person appearance as an organisation. One year later we attended this very same event!

It was a fun night out, meeting new people, laughing with old friends and celebrating the wonderful winners. It was particularly inspiring to see two black women engineers win awards and hope future budding engineers will not lack when it comes to positive role models to look up to.

SiSTEM even got a shout out during last year’s winner (Ama Frimpong) speech!

This year I also was honoured to win not 1 but 2 awards. The WearetheCity? rising star award in the healthcare category and STEM trailblazer of the year award at baton awards 2023.

This time last year I never thought I could add ‘double award winner’ to my name and

as a scientist and even more in my role in med comms you get used to being behind the scenes. You can often feel ‘unseen’ but as I said in my acceptance speech, in winning these awards I truly felt seen and valued.

US Embassy Invitations

I think one of the pinch me moments of the year was when we were invited to the US embassy!

In March, Donna and I attended the US embassy for a STEAM inclusion panel one of our favourite trailblazers Dr Elsa was on the panel.

We were invited again for a tech networking event which was another amazing opportunity to network and meet new people in the tech field. I think for Donna and I this was a big moment for us because we felt included in important conversations and felt like the work we do was being recognised. The US embassy is a beautiful building and we were honoured to be in the room with giants and prominent people in the industry.

First Year Anniversary Events

We held two events to celebrate our first year anniversary: the BIG picnic and a Brunch of SiSTEMs. I remember when we first discussed organising two events it felt very ambitious and a lot of work. It was a lot of hard work (and wasn’t without hiccups and challenges) but it was successful with the help of our interns and collaborators.

We loved meeting our network in person and enjoyed collaborating with other female led organisations.

It was magical, it was as if our tagline ‘two sisters, one dream’ was playing out right in front of us. Friendships were being made, advice were being given from more senior people, women were having fun whilst learning and being inspired. We had a fantastic panel at the brunch which we wish we recorded and made into a podcast. The gems delivered by our panellists tied with Amber Jarrett’s flawless hosting deserves to be heard by women everywhere.

The typical British summer weather tried to ruin our picnic (and our hair!) but the sun soon made an appearance and it was lovely to see so many people showing up to celebrate.

Outreach Work

We finally got to fulfill our goal of going into schools and community outreach work. We ran workshops in secondary schools and colleges, sharing our story and also taking women in our network along with us.

We also worked with an organisation close to our heart the Baytree centre in Brixton and delivered 2 workshops (early years and young girls). As a young girl, I used to pass the Baytree centre on my way to school every morning and I wistfully stare at the building, making a mental note to ask my parents if I can join the centre.

It was therefore a dream come true to run workshops and also speak on a panel at this centre years later.

We were also invited as a community partner of KCL to have a stall at this year’s Lambeth country show and also in collaboration with MRC LMS we took over a pop up shop in Westfields Shepherds Bush! Both events exposed us to the public, gave us the opportunity to communicate science to young kids and allowed us to talk about SiSTEM and science to non-scientists.

Lessons of 2023

We have learnt many lessons this year, especially as we did many things for the first time. The year wasn’t without its challenges and don’t get me wrong a good busy doesn’t mean there wasn’t times we weren’t overwhelmed. There were times we had to learn to say no to avoid burn-out. One of the burning questions we are constantly asked (second to ‘how is it working with your sister?’) is how do we balance SiSTEM with our full time jobs. The short answer to this is we enjoy what we do and try not to see it as ‘work’. We have created a safe space not only for others but for us as black women in STEM. We see the impact SiSTEM is having on our community and young people we meet and that’s what keeps us going when both work and SiSTEM gets stressful. I’ll also like to add as a piece of advice going into 2024, make sure you take breaks! Take a holiday, binge watch that BBC drama, have something you can look forward to as a reward for your hard work. On the back of that, set your boundaries and stick to them.

1. Things work out! Don’t stress yourself especially when things look like they are going off on a tangent. If this year of event planning has taught me anything, it’s things don’t always go to plan due to reasons out of your control.

That’s why it’s good to have a good team around you to keep you levelheaded and to help you to come up with alternative solutions when one door closes (A big shout out to our marketing and PR manger Rhonda).

1. Your network is your networth, as cheesy or as overused as this is, it’s 1000% true. We would have never recieved the opportunities we have if we didn’t have certain people in our network. I can think of many people who speak for us in rooms where we would have never received an invite to and many people we would have never met if we didn’t attend an event or step out of our comfort zone to have a conversation with.

That’s why we take other women along with us whether that’s our ambassadors or bringing a woman in our network to school visits, we need to be each other’s champion.

We hope in 2024 we can continue championing other women and making new and impactful connections.

1. Don’t? be afraid to share your story

When we go to schools, tears prickle at our eyes when girls from similar backgrounds to us are surprised and inspired to hear that I’m a doctor and my sister is an engineer. It’s because at that young age, they already have a preconception of what a STEM professional looks like or some of them have never met a doctor (apart from their GP) or an engineer in real life. They are even more? inspired when we tell them about the failures we have encountered along the way.? ?

If we keep our stories to ourselves, we would never achieve this.

We have met a plethora of women in STEM this year from a range of backgrounds and jobs. We hope to continue to meet so many more amazing women and hopefully share their stories with you as we create content in the new year.

As 2023 comes to an end, we are often asked what is in store for SiSTEM in the coming year. Always I answer with a wide smile splayed across my face: EXPANSION!