The Visiola Foundation’s 2015 STEM Summer Camp for Teenage Girls took place in Abuja on August 17 – 22, 2015 at the lovely Oakland Center. The camp was an exciting weeklong program designed to pique the interest of teenage girls in the STEM fields from an early age. Students at the camp learnt valuable skills in critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork as they were taught to view the world through the lens of the STEM subjects. Successful female African STEM professionals working in diverse industries also mentored the girls. The STEM Summer Camp comprised engaging classroom coursework, practical team activities, fun games, mentoring sessions, and four group projects covering engineering/mechanics concepts, electronics, robotics, and computer programming. During the camp, the students built industrial mixers, electric circuits, FM radios, alarm systems, a crane, an elevator, robot cars, and computer animations using Scratch software developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In addition, the girls were coached to become better public speakers and to give engaging presentations.

Ojo Francis O’size, the Operations Director of E2 Young Engineers Nigeria and a self-proclaimed “STEM Evangelist” was the technical partner for the camp. His company, Young Engineers, combines education and entertainment to train future engineers using fun games. During the camp, O’size emphasized the importance of students thinking like and becoming problem solvers.

The Visiola Foundation’s 2015 STEM Summer Camp was also supported by Intel Corporation Nigeria’s She Will Connect Programme and was attended by Intel Spokesperson, Titilope Sonuga. Sonuga, the award-winning poet, shared her personal journey to becoming a civil engineer with the girls and told them that, “you don’t have to be one thing. You can combine your love for art with engineering, as I have done as a poet.” She also encouraged them to use the internet to learn as much as they can, especially things that aren’t taught in their schools. “You can learn anything using the internet and you can teach yourself. Imagine, I learnt graphic design by tinkering with Adobe. If I did it, you can too!” she said.

Other mentors and speakers at the camp included Yewande Akinola, a Design Engineer at Arup and the 2012 UK Young Woman Engineer of the Year; Johanna Amunjela, a Namibian scientist and PhD Scholar at the University of Aberdeen whose breakthrough discovery in cancer research was featured by the BBC and leading international journals; Marieme Doukoure-Amoa, a Senegalese industrial engineer at Intel Corporation in Silicon Valley, Mudi Apoe, a software engineer and Vice President at Goldman Sachs; and Elizabeth Biney-Amissah, a Ghanaian scientist and Mason Fellow in the mid-career Master in Public Administration Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who has worked on Wall Street and has developed a number of electricity generation projects in West Africa as the Head of eleQtra Ltd.

Global research notes that women with mentors, role models, and networks forged from an early age and growing throughout their careers tend to be more successful than their peers.

Please click on this link to watch a brief slideshow from the STEM Summer Camp.