Girls can
It is a known fact that women often choose university courses in humanities and arts, often seeing engineering as essentially a man’s job. In the fight against stereotypes about women and scientific subjects still held today, Politecnico di Milano has launched “Girls Can” (Le ragazze possono).
01/01/2014 - 31/12/2016
Politecnico di Milano - Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milano
“A series of meetings and discussions for girls to see and reflect on the personal and professional achievement of women engineers, whose technical and scientific talent is coupled with creativity and problem solving skills, which women are good at”, Manuela Pizzagalli, Head of Innovation Projects at Fondazione Politecnico di Milano.
The event
Held over two editions, initially involving a cycle of morning meetings #breakfast@polimi to strengthen, motivate and support girls already taking degrees in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) at Milan-based universities, with presentations by past female students and successful female professionals who spoke of their own experience and guided the girls to look to the future.
Subsequently, starting with the second edition, we set up meetings in schools, motivational workshops and a mentoring desk to provide direction and encouragement to girls, helping them to take informed decisions about degrees in STEM subjects and then advise them in their professional choices.
The project leader is AIDIA, the Italian National Association of Women Engineers and Architects, and the following organisations were partners in the two editions: Politecnico di Milano, Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, Association Donne e Technologies, Freedata Labs, Ingegneria senza frontiere – Milan, PoliHub and the non-profit Liberamente Onlus.
The initiative was realised within Regione Lombardia’s project entitled “Lombardy Designs Parity – 2014 and 2015”.
