Jo Wimble-Groves

Jo speaks about the importance of raising your hand, which is really about taking risks. Living in a society where you constantly feel pressure to be perfect, taking a risk which might result in a failure can be scary. For this reason, girls might not raise their hand in class, unless they are 100% confident of their answer.

This issue then translates into the working world, with female employees being less likely to go for a promotion if they do not meet all of the criteria compared to their male colleagues. One quote from the book I loved is “raising a hand today is about being braver today than you were yesterday”. It is indeed true that it is important to teach young girls to seize opportunities and lead the life they want to, and that that can start with something as small, or big depending on the perspective, as raising their hand.

The Briefcase Story is an inspiring talk about how Jo using her natural skills self-belief and confidence to become a successful tech entrepreneur. Using her best skills and taking an opportunity without being afraid has enabled her to prove that you don’t always need to be a natural academic high achiever to succeed.

As a woman in tech, Jo really enjoys sharing her twenty years’ experience in her sector with the next generation of students. With 85% of jobs in 2030 not even created yet, the world of technology is an exciting space to explore and work. The Briefcase Story is an inspiring story about Jo used my skills in the areas of leadership and she hopes that her story will encourage more women and girls to put their hand up for that next promotion or an opportunity without being afraid of failure. She believes that encouraging women to do this will help them to thrive in current roles or to progress to more senior management levels and help us find our next generation of female tech leaders.

In our modern world, we want to raise girls to feel they can go out into the world with their best foot forward. To do that, we need to raise our girls to believe in themselves. It may sound cheesy, but self-belief and self-esteem are crucial to raising girls to go out into the world feeling confident and resilient for what lies ahead of them. And while raising girls with high self-esteem despite their being surrounded by digitally altered images is no easy task, it is possible. In this talk, Jo shares her tips and advice on how we can take small steps to make a big difference.

Girls have an interest in STEM. However, data from Microsoft in the US showed that interest in STEM drops off when they high senior school. Could the importance of a “growth mindset” play a valuable part on whether girls will keep their interest and motivation in STEM or go for more “feminine” careers instead. Fewer girls keep their interest and motivation in science subjects, and this can translate to fewer female graduates in science, technology, and engineering fields. Could a lack of role models and gender stereotypes impact how likely girls and women are to retain their interest in STEM subjects? Could this be affecting their potential to pursue their passion for STEM in their adult life?

For instance, in 2015, a software company OneLogic launched its recruitment marketing campaign that featured an attractive female engineer. It received a massive backlash from the public. People, especially males, were complaining that this is not what an engineer would look like.

In this talk, we discuss the importance of role models and why, if they want to, everyone should have the ability to look like an engineer. Now is the time to show our students why we need more gender diversity in STEM. This is an ideal talk for National STEM Day on 8th November.