On October 9th, Manchester Digital, with the help of our event sponsors Sainsbury’s, BookingGo, Money Supermarket, STEM Ambassadors and the Science and Industry Museum, hosted our event Ada Lovelace Day: The New Generation.

The event was organised as part of Digital Her, a Manchester Digital initiative that inspires the next generation of women to believe they can attain exciting careers in digital and tech.

Ada Lovelace Day: The New Generation was organised in accordance with Digital Her’s mission statement

‘if she can see it, she can be it’.

On the day, over 100 Year 8 girls were introduced to the 40 real-life role models in attendance – inspirational women who, by already working in the tech sector, are paving the way for the next generation to follow them.

The event was a two-part affair with the student’s arrival being preceded by roundtable discussions that saw leading women from Manchester’s tech community, our role models, explore what we need to do to encourage more women into digital roles.

Next week we will look to publish the findings of these discussions, as well as the actions that we intend to perform as a result of our learnings.

But for now, we would just like to thank everyone who took part, especially...

• Our sponsors for running engaging workshops that showed girls what was possible
• The role models for letting the girls see people that looked like them succeeding
• The teachers and schools who were forward-thinking enough to be involved
• The girls themselves for engaging and participating so brilliantly with the day

Why is Digital Her so important?

We are currently seeing a chronic shortage of women within the digital and tech sector. Findings from our Skills Audit 2018 revealed that

• Only 36% of people working in the sector are female.
• Only 19% of these women are in technical roles.

If we continue to see data like this, we can expect to see

• A lack of opportunities for women, gender bias and discrimination
• An understaffed and un-diverse workforce
• A lack of innovation
• A lack of focus on issues concerning women
• Tech designed inherently for men

What have people said

Katie Gallagher, Managing Director of Manchester Digital

Sarah Beswick, Head of Computing at Sale High School

Dhavinia Chauhan, Loretto College Student

Want to get involved?

Manchester Digital, a not-for-profit member’s association, set up Digital Her to inspire and empower girls to engage with STEM-related subjects at GCSE and A-Level, and to give them the confidence and desire to explore the incredible careers available in digital and tech.

If you are a school or business that would like to know how you can get involved, please visit www.manchesterdigital.com/digital-futures/digital-her for more details or email our Talent and Skills Manager, [email protected] directly.

More images from the day can be found here