AIG Launches Greenlight for Girls (g4g) in Ireland
25th May 2017
The Greenlight for Girls (g4g) initiative, which exists to encourage girls of all ages and backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and maths was just launched for the first time in Ireland at AIG Ireland’s Dublin headquarters.
The event brought together 80 girls aged 11 – 15 and leading female figures with STEM backgrounds from the worlds of sport and business. In attendance on the day were 60 young girls from 25 GAA clubs across Dublin, as well as Dublin Ladies footballers Noelle Healy and Dee Murphy, and Dublin Camogie players Aisling Maher, Grainne Quinn and Laura Twomey.
AIG and g4g have been working together since 2015 and have collectively inspired more than 700 ‘greenlight girls’ aged 11 – 15 by launching community events in London, g4g Day events in Vilnius, Guildford UK, and NYC, and collaborating in Brussels and Barcelona.
This is the first time that g4g and AIG have worked together to bring the initiative to Ireland, collaborating on an event, which included workshops as diverse and informative as learning to code, testing out Virtual Reality and discovering the fun in chemistry by extracting your own DNA.
Research carried out among the attendees found that only 11% of girls wouldn’t like to spend more time in school studying STEM focussed subjects, with 90% of the girls stating that they believe STEM subjects are much more useful than Languages, Arts or PE.
While this shows that the interest exists among young girls in Ireland, research already carried out by g4g in other countries shows that there is work to do to ensure that this early enthusiasm is properly nurtured and that STEM subjects are taught in an engaging way. The research found that only 20% of women with a math or science degree even work in a related field. In Europe, only 30% of researchers are women and less than 10% of young girls in Europe are considering becoming a scientist.
Commenting on the g4g @Work Day in Dublin, Faye Sahai, AIG’s Head of Technology Innovation said: “AIG’s Global Women in Technology organisation believes in encouraging young women to consider careers in STEM-based fields. Greenlight for girls reinforces the magic of science and technology and discovery.”
Pictured (L – R:) Siofra Malone (13), Rugile Auskalynte (13), Hollie Bolger (14), Aoibh Maguire (13) Ellen Lyons (13) who participated in the g4g event in AIG’s Ireland’s Dublin Headquarters recently.
