Ahead of this year’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) Fair in the RDS in Dublin, GradIreland is calling on greater participation from women graduates eager to break the mould.
In its second year, the STEM Fair is one of the increasing number of events annually aimed at linking the top STEM companies in Ireland with students from a range of backgrounds at a time when studies are showing a considerable percentage of girls and women feel their gender is a barrier to entering a STEM career.
Some of the companies confirmed to appear at the event include Ericsson, Abbvie, VMWare, Accenture, BetBright and Stryke, while it’s also expected to host a number of seminars on the day, focusing on careers and employability skills within the STEM sector.
Last year’s event saw 1,246 students and graduates attend, with a survey of those people showing that the most popular type of STEM degrees were in the fields of science and maths (35pc).
Not far behind were degrees in computer science and IT (31pc) and engineering and manufacturing (24pc); but languishing behind are management and business (6pc) and medical and healthcare degrees, with those only making up 4pc of attendees.
Cyberlympix challenge
Revealing more worrying statistics from a diversity perspective, 64pc of STEM Fair’s attendees last year were male, which would fall in line with Accenture’s recent report, which shows that only around 25pc of the 117,800 people working in STEM are women.
To counteract this, at STEM Fair, Ericsson will be hosting the first Cyberlympix –Women in STEM challenge to test women attendee’s STEM and analytical skills.
John Fenton, head of the services campus at Ericsson Ireland, said: “Cyberlympix creates an opportunity for like-minded female students to come together, work as a team and share ideas. Diversity is high on the Ericsson Ireland agenda, and we have a clear goal that by 2020 women will make up 30 percent of our employees.”
For those interested in attending, the STEM Fair will take place on Tuesday, 16 February starting from 12pm.
Women Invent is Silicon Republic’s campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been running since March 2013, and is kindly supported by Intel, Open Eir (formerly Eircom Wholesale), Fidelity Investments, Accenture and CoderDojo.
RDS image via William Murphy/Flickr
