Ernst&Young - Empowering the next generation of women to succeed in a digital world – Girls in ICT

3/28/2019

Europe, Germany, Stuttgart, Germany

115 participants

For the last two years, EY colleagues have visited schools across Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for Girls in ICT Day, facilitating a ‘digital school day’ to get more young girls interested in ICT as a career. 

In 2019, over 100 EY employees worked with groups of 20-30 girls between the ages 11-15 in over 30 schools, sharing their knowledge and insights on ICT. They explored the range of career options in this sector from creative pursuits like web design and Photoshop to data science and robotics. In addition to exploring career opportunities and discussing the importance of women in ICT, the students were taught how to program a simple app or robot. The app allows users to speak a command, such as a request to order a taxi, and the app will then translate and audibly repeat the command in another language. In other schools, the girls programmed robots to drive in certain directions, light up, and follow simple instructions. The day wrapped up with a quick quiz about digitization and some prizes.

Through our Girls in ICT program, we were able to reach more than 600 female students in 2018, and 750 in 2019 across Germany, Switzerland and Austria. By demonstrating the spectrum of possibilities in ICT and teaching the girls practical ICT skills, we are helping them develop the mindsets and transferable skills they will need most to find and sustain meaningful work in our transformative age. 

Our team in Germany visited four schools in Stuttgart, 115 girls participated in the events and, among other activities, and they learned how to code a translator app with the MIT App Inventor.