Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, the PS-12 girls independent school in Princeton, recently hosted more than 900 people for a conference for girls K-12, women mentors, parents, and educators.
Presented by The Stuart Center for Girls’ Leadership, #LEADLIKEAGIRL: A Conference for Risk-Takers and Changemakers, was an all-day event featuring 85 speakers at more than 50 presentations, workshops and panels. Young women in high school won $8,000 in cash prizes in STEM Talks and a Business Fair.
There is a significant gender gap in STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The ethical case for gender equality is often cited, but gender inequality has significant ramifications for the economy as well.
According to a recent report by General Electric economists, the lack of women in technology and engineering is holding back the pace at which these sectors can advance. Women make up just 18 percent of computer programmers, and only 14 percent of engineers. This under-representation corresponds to leadership roles as well.
There is also a significant gender gap for women-owned businesses. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, just 36 percent of privately owned businesses are women owned – and these are smaller, less profitable, and more short-lived than their male-owned counterparts.
For more than 50 years, Stuart has prepared young women for lives of leadership. In today’s global economies leadership requires skills and confidence in the STEM (science, tech, engineering and math) fields and an entrepreneurial spirit. The #LEADLIKEAGIRL conference, which offered programming free to the public, was a natural extension of the school’s innovative STEM, finance/economics, and leadership development curriculum and programs.
“As experts in educating girls, at Stuart we know that it’s crucial to educate young women to know that they are powerful, they can affect change, and their voices are important – particularly in male-dominated arenas,” said Head of School Dr. Patty L. Fagin.
The #LEADLIKEAGIRL Conference was designed to showcase and inspire girls’ confidence, creativity, and leadership in STEM and entrepreneurship. Young women in high school had the opportunity to compete for a total of $8,000 in cash prizes in STEM Talks and Business Fair. The winning students included:
First Place Business Plan $2,500: Caitlyn Delaney, a senior at Stuart for The Celerity Smart Ball, a tennis ball with built in Bluetooth™ technology that calculates, transmits, and records the speed of the ball as it comes off the racquet.
Second Place Business Plan $1,000: Shreya Kalyan, a sophomore at Stuart for AdLexaRi a geriatric medical app and robot that uses augmented reality to engage and support the health of the aging population.
Third Place Business Plan $500: Catherine Hemming and Annie Kelly from Stone Ridge Sacred Heart School in Bethesda, MD for Coming Full Circle: A Business Proposal that Comes Back Around, creating jewelry pieces from a metal-clay compound and a certain percent of the profit goes to a mining-based charity.
First Place STEM Talk $2,500: Isabelle Engel, a senior at Stuart for The Virtual Reality Chemistry App Development Process
Second Place STEM Talk $1,000: Rhea Malhotra, a freshman at Moravian Academy in Allentown, PA for The Selective Regeneration of Dopaminergic Neuronal Stem Cells
Third Place STEM Talk and $500: Priyanka Dilip, a junior at Montgomery High School for Fabricating High-Efficiency Organic Field-Effect Transistors.
The conference featured two keynote speakers: Dr. Ellen Stofan, former chief scientist at NASA and Debbie Sterling, founder and CEO of GoldieBlox. Students were able to meet and hear from over 50 expert women mentors including local female entrepreneurs and leaders in the fields of finance and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Speakers came from as far as California, and attendees even included a STEM education contingent from Greece.
Speakers included local professional women: Rakia Reynolds, founder of Blue Skai Media, Debbie Schaeffer, CEO of Mrs. G, Jessica Durrie, co-founder of Small World Coffee, Joanne Farrugia, founder of jaZams, Lindsay Vastola, founder of Body Project Fitness and Lifestyle, Georgianne Vinicombe, founder of Monday Morning Flowers. and New York-based Stuart alumna Joanna Vargas, one of the most sought out estheticians in the beauty industry.
The #LEADLIKEAGIRL sponsors: The Edward E. Ford Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Glenmede, Johnson & Johnson, Plainsboro Pediatrics, Merrill Lynch Scull-Ridings Group, Prudential Financial, Sciecure, Edison Partners, Flik Dining Services, Korn Ferry, MD Advantage, Nadia and Shahid Khan, Princeton Academy, The Baranski Family, AECOM, TCNJ School of Engineering MEd Integrative STEM, The Lagay Family, University Radiology, and ZS Associates.
