An inspiring STEM initiative for the whole educational community 

by Dr. Iro Koliakou

It is important to highlight the work of women in STEM in order to inspire the new generation.  Towards this effort Anatolia College joined forces with the Greek Women in STEM association and organised a webinar for students, parents  and young professionals from all around Greece.  The webinar lasted about two hours with a participation of more than 450 people. Young women from different STEM fields presented their state of the art research and students asked the point questions creating a wonderful online community. 

Green Women in STEM is an inspiring initiative with a mission to highlight and support the work of Greek women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics & Medicine) and all related fields.

This is done through three axes:

1. interviews with the scientists themselves
2.  articles on topics related to scientific news and advancements with reference to the contribution of Greek researchers and scientists 
3. a mentoring program

Greek women in STEM aims to support students through:

1. Organization of topics for various branches of STEM fields through presentation of personal stories of researchers.
2. Inform students about exchange programs or studies abroad, talk about  what life is like in different countries and what  differences there are in educational systems around the world. 
3. Presentation of scientific articles and how important is the correct use of language in the STEM sciences.
4. Provide space and guidance for students to do bibliographic research and submit an article to the Greek Women in STEM page
5. Organize (virtual) guided tours of the researchers’ workplace to see what the research space actually looks like.

Founder of Greek Women in STEM Dr. Lina Ntokou highlights the past , present and future aims of  Greek Women in STEM. 

Past / Present:

The Greek Women in STEM journalism / training page has attracted volunteer members to the writing and organizing team. At the same time we run a counseling program, acting as a liaison between volunteer mentors and people seeking counseling. All mentees  involved are adults and our actions with schools, such as with Anatolia College  are done only after consultation with teachers in the respective institutions. For the counseling area, we supervise the program for one month and at the end we issue a certificate of participation.

Present:

In a voluntary / mutually supportive part, we collaborate with  teams such as real science, γέφυρες γνώσης και συνεργασίας, iv united while since the summer of 2020 we have participated in various educational activities as well as various media have reported our work 

Future:

1. Ideally I would like to be able to have some grants for seminars at universities or other academic and non-academic venues in order to promote research and counseling support for young people’s professional careers. We are also planning the first international symposium Greek Women in STEM with seminars on programming training, CV writing, etc. Finally, the company Tenebra Studios has invited us to the gaming exhibition they organize while collaborating with the STEM center of Anatolia Thessaloniki with which we organized the first free nationwide interactive presentation of researchers and students connecting the STEM fields.

2. On the other hand, the field of communication  of science in Greece – as far as I know – does not exist in an organized way and I would like to create an internship program through universities where students will learn how to write and communicate science in a meaningful way. In essence, this will be a link between journalism and science.You  can learn more about Greek Women in STEM through the webpage and read a personal interview of Dr. Lina Ntokou here