TWF's Girls Go Tech Programme is Selected as an Operation Santa Claus Beneficiary

We are excited to share the happy news that for the first time in our history, TWF has been selected as an Operation Santa Claus beneficiary!

OSC will support TWF's new Girls Go Tech Programme in 2016 which will provide workshops in coding, technology and problem-solving skills to teen girls at some of Hong Kong's most under-privileged schools. Classroom instruction will be supplemented by inspirational speaker events, careers talks and work shadowing opportunities. TWF is currently piloting the programme with the help of Accenture, Barclays and Cisco and we look forward to sharing the results next year after the independent impact assessment has been completed.

Besides Girls Go Tech, we are also excited to be launching a new study in partnership with Dr Dannii Yeung of City University of Hong Kong and Dr Mario Liong of HKU and sponsored by GS Gives on why girls in Hong Kong shy away from STEM subjects at school and university, thereby adversely impacting their future competitiveness in the workforce. We hope the study will generate recommendations for policy change, new approaches for educational programmes and vocational training, and targeted support from the community to address the under-representation of women in the tech sector in Hong Kong. 

Still on tech, many of you will recall that for the last two years we have partnered with Microsoft on GirlSpark - a ground breaking programme that provides female first and second year undergraduates with a better understanding of the range of possible career pathways in the technology sector through a business case competition and mentoring by technology and other leaders. Our third GirlSpark camp will take place in January 2016 and we are gearing up to recruit candidates from across Hong Kong's major universities. 

On November 12, we are hosting a Breakfast with President Kathy McCartney of Smith College who will talk about how Smith is preparing students for careers in STEM and other non-traditional fields and Smith’s new partnership with HKUST to groom women leaders in this region. Many thanks to DLA Piper for supporting the event.

We would also love to hear from you with your ideas on how we can get more girls interested and engaged in STEM. Please write to me at su-mei.thompson@twfhk.org.

 

27
10
2015

Written by

The Women's Foundation