Texas Women and Girls in STEM Summit
Concurrent Sessions #1
10:45 a.m. - 11:30 a.m

Hosted in Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet

Holistic Coaching to Retain and Grow Women Leaders in STEM
To retain and grow women leaders we need to coach and guide women to thrive holistically across work and life. Programs today are typically structured to address only specific short-term skills gaps, are not holistic, and do not start early enough in their careers. Implementing programs that focus on growing women holistically for long-term success, start early in their careers, and help them thrive overall in life, will help retain more women, and set strong foundations for women to become successful STEM leaders. This workshop will share best practices and strategies for successful implementation of such programs. Attendees will work in groups to discuss and create or update existing programs for their organizations.
Presented by Priya Ramachandran, Senior Director, R&D Global Operations, NI

Innovation out of Necessity: Embracing the Entrepreneurial Mindsets
Nonprofits, schools, teachers, students, and families adapted and innovated to solve the challenges brought on by the pandemic like never before. COVID-19 pushed the education community to become entrepreneurial problem-solvers out of necessity. This session will share innovations that created a positive impact and inspire you to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset to help change the way we engage learners in a post-pandemic world.
Presented by Itzel Gutierrez, Program Manager, ventureLab; Helen Holdsworth, The Witte Museum; Katie Kizziar, UT Austin McDonald Observatory

Is Your STEM Idea a Hidden Gem?
In this session, you will learn how to progress from concept to launch phase with your own STEM idea, product, or program. During the pandemic, Hidden Gems was started to address at-home science and math learning. Today, we have stores on Shopify and Amazon bringing STEM to middle school girls across America in a fun and engaging way. Join me and leading eduPreneurs for tips and tricks on how to build your audience and gain pilot testers for your product or service in order to support more girls in STEM.
Presented by Saki Milton, Executive Director, The GEMS Camp; Marlena Gross-Taylor, EduGladiators

Strategies to Develop Leadership Skills for Engagement
This presentation will give participants practical tools that can be used right away to identify and develop leaders and spark interest to engage in STEM Programs. Learning how to develop the leader inside each child at an elementary school level empowers students to take risks which will allow them to be open to participating and try something new. During this presentation, participants will have the opportunity to hear and apply a variety of strategies that will develop the leader for engagement during their programs. Through these strategies, organizations can recognize and assess ways to develop their program to increase girls of differing ethnicities and races to participate in their programs.
Presented by Greta Newman, Elementary Teacher, Dunwoody Christian School

Creating Space for Everyone: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through Robotics 
Building on our efforts to inspire and introduce more girls to STEM through our initiatives, we've broadened the definition of STEM inclusion in our community. In this session, we will review our STEMGirls program, which encourages elementary and middle school girls to explore robotics as an avenue to STEM studies. We'll also share our success in supporting special needs students through Assistive Technology and a FIRST Access competition in Texas last June. Finally, we'll explore ways students can directly impact their communities by forming and supporting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion programs in their schools. Our efforts have positively impacted hundreds of students, building confidence in their ability to be included in our increasingly STEM-focused world.
Presented by Westlake High School FIRST Robotics Team- FRC 2468 Team Appreciate Team Members and High School Students Arohi Majmudar, Mia Jeramiah, Taarika Bhargava, and Athena Luo along with Adult Mentor Joyce Witowski

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