ConsCientistas

ConsCientistas Project is a mobile app that brings together interviews with Brazilian women scientists, chats about careers, mental health, and a calendar with the main events in the STEM fields.

We will develop an App (Conscientistas) with content to involve girls in scientific subjects such as: calendar of events on the theme, interviews with scientists from several areas, sharing of free didactic materials, chats and conversations about relevant subjects and sharing of proposals of opportunities (grants, scholarships and volunteering). In addition, we will promote talks and face-to-face meetings to encourage girls to learn about various scientific areas and motivate them to believe that women can occupy all spaces in STEM fields.

For girls in vulnerable situations, that is, who do not have access to the internet, we will democratize the content in quick radio broadcasts that will be sent via simple cell phones and local radios.

According to data from the Higher Education Census released in 2018, in Brazilian universities, women represent only 43% of students enrolled in science majors. The percentage is even lower when it comes to women who have completed their undergraduate degrees, totaling 38% only.

These data show that the lack of encouragement and references to Brazilian women thinkers, researchers and scientists impacts the choice of school-age girls in our country on a daily basis. Another major problem is what we call "common sense", which shapes girls from a very early age to believe that brilliance is "a boy thing", and in the imagination of many of these girls being a scientist or engineer is something unattainable, that is, most girls do not have in their aspirations the expectation of opting for one of these careers. Unfortunately, the social and cultural reinforcement that genius and intelligence are, from very early on, qualities associated with boys, creates obstacles that keep girls away from scientific careers and makes our country even more distant from achieving gender equality. Therefore, our project was created with the idea of transforming the narrative and interrupting the processes of invisibility of women in science that are carried on until today. Our goal is that more girls can dream of a career in STEM and be able to advance in these fields

Our project aims to encourage girls in science from the end of early childhood through the last year of Brazilian basic education, that is, from 6 to 18 years old. We also aim to support and disseminate STEM fields to girls living in vulnerable communities, with the purpose of showing them ways to feel able to become scientists or engineers and thus positively impact the entry of more women into STEM careers in our country.

We intend to use part of the prize to conduct further research with the target audience to evaluate our prototype.

In addition, we are girls scientists and we bring our experiences and trajectories to the target audience as a contribution, we are part of a Brazilian scientific community called "InSpace" in which we have the possibility to test our hypotheses with other girls who want to better understand and have careers in science, especially in STEM. Besides having access to women scientists who understand the importance of encouraging the younger generation. 

We are also part of the Força Meninas (Go Girls) accelerator program, and for 9 months we will be mentored by professional experts to develop a solution.

Today we are already testing online content and events through the project's social networks, especially Instagram. In addition, we have already started the design of the screens of the application and we will participate in the acceleration program of Força Meninas (Go Girls) that aims to develop our project.

The technology we will use is digital technology, as we believe it has the ability to ensure scalability to our project. Our main solution is a proprietary app with the goal of encouraging girls to learn more about careers in science, creating a community to share events, opportunities and knowledge about the subject.

Our first goal is to reach our audience through content on social networks, especially Instagram. We set a goal of 1000 followers in the first year. On the other hand, we intend to give lectures in 9 schools per semester, totaling 18 schools in the year and about 1800 students in the project's age group in the same period. During this period we will develop the app, and enroll the interested students after the lectures as beta testers of our solution.

We believe that in two years we will have reached more than 3000 girls organically.

Our impact goals for the coming year are initially to succeed in spreading the word on social networks to awaken the interest of girls who like scientific careers, but still don't know how to find more information about them. In addition, we intend to seek partnerships with schools and institutions to hold our lectures in person. Our goal is to impact over 3,000 girls in our state throughout the year, and with the success of the pilot and good use of the application by girls, our goal is to scale the solution throughout Brazil. 

We also count on the support and mentoring of the organizations that we are already part of, such as Força Meninas(Go Girls) to receive support and mentoring.

We will be conducting surveys with the girls who attend the in-person lectures and polls on social media. Our goal is to check if interest in these areas will grow among the girls who are impacted by the project talks. In addition, we will evaluate how our solution is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, according to our previous analysis, we will meet the following indicators:

(3) Healthy Living - Our project's main focus is scientific dissemination, however we have a plan to provide mini events focused on mental health. The idea is to discuss subjects such as: self-knowledge, self-care and other relevant female subjects.

(4) Quality Education: Education is our pillar. Our project intends to expand education and knowledge through scientific dissemination.

(5) Gender Equality: Gender equality in science is what we fight for, with the goal of contributing to debates on the subject.

Currently, the barriers that are preventing us girls from realizing our goals for this year 2022 are:

•  The financial issue for the investment of materials to develop solutions/projects.
• Technical, because we will need to build a strong support network to help us carry out the activities online and in person, but the current context in which we live, especially the pandemic, has made social interactions difficult.

Even with all the difficulties, we believe in the importance of our initiative and we are willing to deal with all the challenges that lie ahead.

In our trajectory, we have experienced the difficulties of what it is to be a girl in STEM fields, in Brazil. That is, lack of representation, support, mentoring, and visibility. In our team, we have had the experience of feeling incapable of learning mathematics or any other science-oriented subject. However, as time went by and with the completion of several courses, participations in scientific olympiads and competitions focused on these areas, we realized that self-confidence can be developed with a lot of study and persistence. And because of this, we believe that it is very important to spread the opportunities to other girls. For only persistence and consistency can change the reality of the male majority from school competitions to the job market. 

Therefore, our wish is that the history of the scientific world changes and that we can encourage more girls to become scientists and give visibility to women who are already following this path and can inspire many others.

Currently we are partnered with Força Meninas (Go Girls). This is the only support organization in Brazil for girls. We are working with events, challenges, meetings, and interactive lectures with the female society.

We are girls who have already experienced the difficulties of what it is like to be a girl in STEM fields, and with that, we realize the urgent need to invest both in quality education for girls, but also in raising awareness of gender equity in this environment. Therefore, with this prize we will invest in materials that will influence and enhance the interest of girls in STEM fields, in their processes of autonomy construction and professional choice.

Because we are STEM girls and spend most of our time on these subjects, we have a good understanding of how to share our knowledge with other girls. In addition, we have good relationships with local schools and institutions, which makes it easier for us to reach more girls' lives. So, with all of these tools we believe we have great capabilities to reach girls' lives in our communities and in the future throughout Brazil.

Our team will use this prize to focus on developing our app, expenses with staff travel, with educational events that we will make available, and invest in didactic materials to share and use in our meetings.