We need more girls to be interested in science, technology and math.
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
Alice Brooks grew up playing visiting her dad’s robotics lab. When she asked for a Barbie, he gave her a mini saw. So, she made her own doll! Today, Alice holds Mechanical Engineering degrees from MIT and Stanford. She loves making anything from light fixtures to stuffed animals to strawberry shortcake in her spare time.
She and her co-founders at Maykah (the maker of Roominate dollhouses with working circuits)wish they saw more women in their upper level math and science classes. They designed Roominate to develop young girls’ confidence and enthusiasm for math, science, and learning through fun hands-on play.
Here are some more items for young girls, from books and electronic LEGOs to free iPad games, created by engineers who want to help change the ratio in math, science and computer classes everywhere.
And hopefully soon, this ratio will change in company boardrooms, engineering departments and science laboratories everywhere.
Adafruit Industries is having a Cyber Monday sale – Get 10% off items with discount code “CYBERMONDAY” – get FREE UPS ground shipping in the continental USA for orders over $250 and a FREE Raspberry Pi (512mb version) for orders over $350 – full details on the Adafruit website.
Stay tuned – on Friday, we will reveal whole list of female-founded e-commerce companies to support!
Women 2.0 readers: What gift(s) do you recommend for breeding the next generation of girl geeks, innovators and leaders? Let us know in the comments.
Angie Chang is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Women 2.0, a media company offering content, community and conferences for aspiring and current women innovators in technology. Our mission is to increase the number of female founders of technology startups with inspiration, information and education through our platform. Previously, Angie held roles in product management and web UI design. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.
