Creating Role Models

Create role models in the family environment, by educating parents about the potential technology holds for their daughters, through programs organized at schools. Every decision a child usually makes, starts at home. Why not try to change the perspective of a generation by educating the generation that influences it!

Role models are people who influence others by serving as examples. Girls usually grow up to imitate the behavior, ideas, and attitudes of their parents. For most girls, the most influential role models are their parents, and more specifically mothers who have a regular presence in their lives. Because kids are observing all the time, the actions, beliefs, and attitudes become integrated into a children’s way of being. Therefore, the information available to a little girl through her parents during her early childhood may unintentionally shape her whole future.

We want to educate and inform the parents through informative seminars at schools, and local communities, about the possibilities and opportunities technology, holds for their daughters. Our aim is to alter the parents' perception of girls working in STEM and give them a chance to motivate a whole generation of girls -their daughters- towards STEM, with the aim to eliminate the gender inequality in Technology. Only if girls grow up considering STEM as an attractive and possible field of study which is accepted and understood by their parents, will decide to get involved with technology and participate fully and prosper in the economy.

Our solution is based on the fact that every parent wants what's best for his/her child, and we try to make parents realize that what's best for their daughters is to give them the opportunity to experience STEM and the chance to be part of the most evolving profession in the 21st century. So our mission is to motivate a generation towards STEM by educating the generation that raises it! 

The problem is identified in the early stages of a girl’s life and is due to the lack of examples and information in the family environment concerning STEM. Based on the statistics on women in STEM, girls in the 21st century will rarely be motivated by their parents -especially their mothers- to follow a STEM education or career because in most cases they have a wrong perception or misleading information about this field. So, if a girl won't have any opportunities to experience STEM outside home, it is most probable that won't consider it as an opportunity for her future.

As a co-founder of Code it Like a Girl, a nonprofit organization that organized workshops to teach girls and women in Greece how to code with an aim to reduce the gender gap in STEM, I have realized that the reason why girls don't select STEM studies or careers is due to the lack of role models in their family environment. Everything starts at home, from the first role model to the ultimate decision. So to change the perspective of a generation, you have to first change the perspective of the ones that influence this generation!

The target outcome of the solution proposed is to manage to inform all parents about the opportunities, and potential STEM holds for their daughters, through informative and interactive seminars organized at private and public schools, local communities or independent organizations. The plan is to create an information pack that will be written in a very understandable way, and it will include all the possible education and career opportunities a girl can have in STEM. Both parents and daughters will benefit from the proposed solution as they will be both updated on the most evolving field of the 21st century. 

Personal telephone contact with the receipient of the information pack - Send the information pack to at least 50% of elementary schools in Greece

Personal email contact with the receipient of the information pack - Send the information pack to other countries in Europe

Our solution is unique because it tries to address the problem from its root. We try to influence a generation by changing the perspective and informing the family environment this generation grows up inside to deal with the gender inequality in Technology. Our solution is based on the fact that every parent wants whats best for his/her child, and we try to make parents realize that whats best for their daughters is to give them the opportunity to experience STEM and possibly follow a career in this field. 

The solution proposed can work with the use of no technology, despite its fully technological mission. Our mission is to inform parents, no matter their access to technology, their connectivity or background. We want parents to visit the schools or local communities and listen to the presentation and information pack prepared for them. Despite the digital availability of the information pack, we want people who come to the seminars to leave with a hardcopy of what they have learnt.

Our solution is free of charge. It requires from schools or local communities to present an information pack, which will be available for download on our website, to parents that are interested in learning about the opportunities and possibilities of STEM. Being free of charge and not requiring from the parents to have internet access, it gives our solution the possibility of being very quickly deployed and reaching its goal. 

We plan to be financially supported by DEI College, a private college in Greece through its social innovation hub during our first steps. Being part of a social enterprise before, we have created a network that we can have access to and ask for help while we are growing. In our previous venture we had the chance to collaborate with the Clinton Foundation, Aggelopoulos Foundation, Red Bull, Microsoft Hellas, etc. and we believe that we will have their support for realizing this project. To become financially independent, we can organize premium adult and children STEM seminars.

The only factors limiting our solution to succeed is the Greek bureaucracy that may not give us permission to contact public schools and organize informative seminars.

https://mnchatzio.wixsite.com/nefelichatziio

The problems we deal with, as social innovators are so multidimensional and so perplexed that demand a person's most extreme and out-of-the-box thinking. I want to be part of Solve, because I believe it has "answers" to my "questions" and in my turn, I have "answers" to others' "questions". My aim is to join a global network that is willing to lead change because this is what fascinates me in Social Innovation and in competitions that want to create change; they can find a way to solve issues of global concerns and I want to be part of it!

DEI College, a private college in Greece which collaborates with the University of London and the University of Northampton, and together we try to build the first Social Innovation Hub which will also deliver this venture proposal.

We don't have any competitors. We have a lot of mentors and role models like code.org