Anne-Marie Imafidon was recently awarded the Society Medal by the British Computer Society for her work supporting young women and non-binary people of all ages into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) careers.
Born and raised in East London, Anne-Marie became the youngest girl to pass A-Level Computing at the age of 11 and she was only 20 when she passed a Master’s degree in Maths and Computer Science from Oxford University! She went on to work in industry but realised there was a big problem in how few women there were both studying STEM subjects and so taking up careers, despite there being no good reason why they shouldn’t enjoy such subjects and careers.
Using her entrepreneurial skills, and industry contacts, she decided to do something about it. In 2013 she therefore founded STEMettes a social enterprise (a business aiming to do good for society rather than just make money like most companies). It aims to inspire and support young women and non-binary people in STEM now extended to STEAM so including the arts as well. Since then it has reached over 73,000 young people. They do this by running all kinds of events like programming hackathons solving real world problems in teams, STEAM clubs, panel sessions where women share and non-binary role people act as models sharing their experiences and advice, school trips to STEAM offices, run courses in programming and cyber security, run competitions and lots.
Anne-Marie has campaigned tirelessly for equity in the tech workplace, raising the profile of under-represented groups in industry and commerce so is a really deserving winner of the BCS award that recognises people who have made a major contribution to society.
– Jane Waite and Paul Curzon, Queen Mary University of London
This is an extended version of an article that first appeared on our Teaching London Computing Site.
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