On Friday, April 1st 2016, our New England Campus of Microsoft held our annual DIGIGIRLZ DAY at our Kendall Square office with our largest group yet – 175 attendees, providing middle and high school girls with a better understanding of careers in technology and how technology can simply be fun! Attendees came from Boston, North and South Shore, Central MA, and as far away as Cranston, Rhode Island thanks to Lorilyn Hall and Dino Ciccone who helped get their local school to attend.
We had a great day using Twitter #DigiGirlzMA with contests and ending with raffling off great prizes including a Surface:
We started off the day with an inspiring video from our International Women’s Day Campaign #MAKEWHATSNEXT GIRLSDOSCIENCE. The video’s goal is to inspire young women around the globe to get interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math), and Computer Science in particular, as a path for advancing their education and as a way to empower them to achieve more.
Students were engaged in workshops featuring everything from hands-on coding sessions to talking about careers and internships. Sessions included:
- Making their own original piece of music with Stagelight on surfaces taught by Eliza Mulcahy, Lisa Casillo & David Swenson & additional store staff from the local Microsoft Stores in Boston, Natick and Burlington to an Hour of Code Programming Concepts with DX’s Gavin Bauman to a valuable Career Discussion with college interns, University Recruiter, and Foundry Program Manager from our campus FOUNDRY program, specifically lead by Ben Fersenheim and Maddy Leger.
- After a break for lunch, we had a unique speaker, Senior Curator of Textiles & Fashion Arts, Lauren Whitley from the Museum of Fine Arts, one of our local non-profit partners, to talk about their new exhibit #TECHSTYLE. The exhibit includes clothes that respond to the environment, ingeniously constructed from recycled materials, and garments that come off a 3-D printer ready to wear-all of these innovations are poised to have a profound impact on the future of the fashion industry. Designers have embraced these innovations and “#techstyle” explores how the synergy between fashion and technology is not only changing the way designers design, but also the way people interact with their clothing. The Museum was gracious enough to give VIP tickets to all attendees to visit the exhibit in person.
- Ending the day, students learned the right way to use social media with a Social Media Workshop with Social Media Strategist & Entrepreneur, Lauren Metter, Sarah Ribeiro and team from Metter Media. They also were excited to see our innovation/future in technology at the MTC’s Envisioning & Interactive Center with Craig Dillon and Chad Gronbach.
The students left with plenty of resources to use to further their curiosity in technology. Special thanks to others involved in helping to make our event a success: Jenn Kwiatkowski, Fara St. Clair, Aster Hishe, Elizabeth Shea, Carl Thibeault and John Harlow.