Why Young Girls Should be Playing with Robots (not Barbies)
A new generation of educators are destroying some old taboos
Our world is filled with conflicting images about how men and women are meant to behave. This makes it difficult for young people, especially young girls, to feel comfortable in following their passions. That’s a problem. We’re living in an age of considerable challenges, from environmental degradation and climate change, to the growing problems of international migrants and refugees, to unemployment, and increasing and destabilizing income inequality. In order to solve these challenges we need to ensure that the next generation of scientists, artists, architects, doctors, social workers and engineers is more representative and diverse.
One person who’s working towards that goal is Nicole Brown. She’s the CEO of Robogals, an organisation that seeks to increase the participation of young women in the science and engineering fields. They do this by holding workshops with girls at primary and high schools. They introduce them to women who are working in technical fields, and encourage them to develop an interest in robotics, and a love for all things mechanical. Nicole is currently doing her Masters in Structural Engineering and has been the CEO of Robogals since 2013. I caught up with her recently to talk about the success of Robogals, and why she thinks it’s so important to spark an interest in science and technology for girls at a young age.
As a kid, did you know what you wanted to do when you ‘grew up’?
At the start of primary school, I wanted to be a marine biologist, because I loved dolphins. But then I realised that you have to cut up the dolphins to find out more about them, so I decided that wasn’t for me. My next goal was to be a physiotherapist. As someone who had experienced a lot of netball and gymnastics injuries at school, I met a lot of physiotherapists, so I decided that’s what I wanted to do. They’d helped me so much and I wanted to help others recover from the same sorts of injuries that I’d had.
That lasted until about two weeks before I had to put in my subject preferences for my final year of school. My parents had suggested doing an aptitude test, and there was a part that was about shapes and logic, which I did well in and really loved. So I went to the careers counsellor and told her and she said “That sounds great — have you considered engineering?” So I changed all my preferences. I’ve never looked back.
That was just five years ago — and now you’re the head of a global organisation! How does that feel?
To be honest, I’m just seeing it as something I want to be doing. To me it’s not like I say “Wow, I’m a CEO.” I see myself the same as everyone else. I’m just working on something that I’m passionate about and I’m trying to make a difference. At 23, I never thought I would have these opportunities, that I would be managing an international organisation, and having meetings with smart and interesting people from around the world. And I’m still getting my head around things like budgets and finances and funding and governance structures and everything else that comes with the job. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t expected, but I love what I do. Robogals has given me an opportunity that I don’t think you could get anywhere else.
What are your general impressions of the robotics/automation industry?
Robogals did start as a robotics organisation, but as we’ve grown and expanded our range we’re not just robotics anymore, we’re now covering all forms of engineering. This better reflects the needs of our members and also the companies that sponsor and partner with us. As for engineering, I think there’s a lot being done and the industry is recognising the need to see the number of women participating in the field increase. There’s still a long way to go though. I think the issue stems back to the grassroots thing — girls being influenced by the stereotypes that have been put before them and being encouraged to do specific roles because that’s what has always happened. And we need to challenge the perceptions we have facing us.
It’s not about the recognition that is needed, but just the general understanding of the field. There are so many people in society that just don’t know what engineering is, what an engineer does, or how vital it is to us as a society. So we need to encourage girls at a younger age to realise that it’s an option, and the general public needs to be made more aware of what the field entails.
How do you think our society does when it comes to roles for women in science?
I do feel like there’s a need to put those faces out there and to recognise women in all industries. It’s about counteracting stereotypes. We should also be profiling men who are underrepresented in certain industries, such as nurses and flight attendants. We need to get away from this idea that a stereotype suits a particular person. And companies should be leading the charge. For example, I was very excited a few weeks back when Target took down all their gender-specific signage. There shouldn’t be an uproar about this, we should be asking why hasn’t this been done before? Large companies have that influence to challenge the stereotypes.
Why is it so important to have a women-specific group in this space?
What I’ve found interesting is that as we’ve developed, and as our organisation has grown, we’re actually not female volunteers — we are everybody, so we have both males and females that recognise there are issues here and want to help change that. It’s about providing the girls with an opportunity to feel comfortable to try something different. At some of the schools that we’ll go out to, in a mixed class the girls will tend to sit back. And I was guilty of that when I was younger too, to just sit back and let the boys do it because they seem more confident. So it’s about providing the girls with the confidence to try something different.
At the university level, when you go to engineering conferences and you see all males… it’s something you don’t notice until you’re actually looking for it, and that was something I noticed when I first started with Robogals back in 2011. I’d go to conferences or I’d go to events and now it’s like second nature, as soon as I get into a room, I’ll have a look around and you can count the number of women in the room on one or two hands. There’s a need for companies I think, to profile the success that they’ve had within their organisation or just say to women “This is an opportunity if you’re interested”. Obviously if you’ve got better male speakers or they are more successful, they should be interviewed but having a bit more equal opportunity in the field is necessary.
Is there anyone in particular who has influenced you to get to where you are now?
Sam Cheah, from Canberra became Chief of Operations at the same time I became CEO, so we entered into this new phase of the organisation together. And she’s been amazing at supporting me and helping me through. External to the organisation, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the old Chair of the Robogals board, Dr. Bronwyn Evans. She was the Chair for four years, she’s now the CEO of Standards Australia. She helped me learn how to speak about the challenges that face me and how to deal with different situations.
More generally, I’m inspired by so many of the amazing women and men in the field and by the people on my team, on our regional team, in our chapters, our volunteers… if I get an opportunity to speak with them, it just continues to encourage me and to motivate me to say, yes, this is why I’m doing this, I’m here for a reason. It’s their energy that helps my energy.
So how is Robogals going as an organisation?
We’re going well! Back when we started in 2008, it was just in Melbourne, and we had about 20 people involved and it grew from there. So in 2009, we were in Melbourne and London. In 2010, we added five other cities across Australia, and by 2011 we had four [campuses] in the UK and seven in Australia and now we are at 31 around the world, in nine different countries. It shows that on the whole, people are recognising that what we are doing needs to happen, that what we are doing is important.
There’s a story of a girl in the UK. She participated at a workshop in high school, and when she started university in Loughborough, she contacted me saying, “Look, there’s no Robogals here, but you’ve helped me choose mathematics and engineering as possible careers and I am willing to start a chapter so that I can make a difference.” To me, that’s the best possible outcome. It’s the full cycle. You’ve found out that you’ve inspired someone to actually make that change and to enter that field and you can’t ask for much more than that.
What have been the hardest obstacles you have had to overcome? What is frustrating about your work?
Well the frustration comes naturally if things take too long, or they don’t work out the way you want, I think that goes for everyone. The main frustrations I have had relate mainly to time management. I’m a full-time student and I work full-time over my holidays, which is obviously when Robogals ramps up. So it’s all about time management and motivation and making sure you’ve got that equal balance between work, study, having a social life, and Robogals comes in on top of all of that. It’s about the prioritisation and knowing what your own personal limitations are.
What dreams do you want to achieve?
I want to build a bridge! Obviously that’s a very far-off dream, but I would love to be on a team one day that builds a bridge. Engineering is not a solo sport, it’s a team activity. But to either design and build a bridge or lead a team on a construction site on a major project would be amazing. The experience in Robogals has given me the passion for management as well as the engineering field, so I am hoping to enter that field eventually.
If you had one key piece of advice to a girl wanting to head into any field where women are traditionally under-represented, what would it be?
I gave a speech a few weeks ago which required me to think about that exact question. And I said that the most important thing is just be yourself. There’s so much peer pressure and expectations that can be set on you from family or friends to do something that you don’t want to do. The best advice I can give is just be true to yourself and just really take the time to think about what you want to become. Because at the end of the day, I know it’s a clichéd saying, but you don’t work a day in your life if you do something you love. And it’s true! That’s something that I’ve always believed. It’s simple and a lot of people might tell you the same thing, but I look back and it was just that I had never thought about it.
Can we do it? Can we get more women into science and engineering? Where do you see things going in the next five to ten years?
I have no doubt that it’s possible to changing these stereotypes and achieve greater female representation in male-dominated industries. But everything takes time. I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next five years, it may not even happen in the next ten. But there are such amazing organisations out there that challenge perceptions and ask girls to speak up to provide them with these opportunities.
We are one of them, and we hope that we can encourage and empower young girls to think differently and to consider things that they may not necessarily consider. It’s something we are working on as a society, and it will take time, but we are going to get there.
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All images courtesy of Robogals
