Self-eSTEM Earns Athena Award

February 5, 2021

Self-estem Bonding over BrunchCongratulations to Self e-STEM for being a 2021 Women in Tech Initiative Athena Award Winner in the Next Generation Engagement.

The Women in Tech Initiative at UC is proud to announce the fifth annual Athena Award winners. Sponsored by CITRIS and the Banatao Institute and Berkeley Engineering, the awards recognize those who embody, encourage, and promote the inclusion of women in technology.

Self-eSTEM provides interactive, culturally responsive STEM literacy, leadership, and technical training for girls and young women. Self-eSTEM focuses on building the skills, confidence, and resiliency needed for the STEM workforce of the future. The organization helps young women visualize themselves as STEM educators, engineers, programmers, and future industry leaders and mentors. The program model is designed to scale culturally-relevant content for educators and provide participant support at core developmental stages: childhood, emerging adulthood, and early career. The Self-eSTEM team is recruited from the community they serve and shares the experiences and background of their constituents. Since 2014, Self-eSTEM has served over 1,200 girls and helped them realize their education and career pursuits.

Self- eSTEM has partnered with the College of Environmental Design, ITS Berkeley, Low Income/first Generation Students (LIFGen), College of Environmental Design Students of Color (CEDSOC) and planning professor/UCTC Director Karen Trapenberg Frick over the last several years to hold events and provide support and mentors on campus for the program, earning an award for their efforts

Recently, Self-eSTEM launched a STEM Equity and Racial Justice Pledge as a direct response to our nation’s racial and gender challenges. It reflects a direct approach toward dismantling the systemic inequality and racism within STEM education and career pathways. The free program provides wraparound support and culturally relevant content to increase recruitment and retention of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations in the STEM talent pipeline.

The 5th Annual Women in Tech Symposium on “The New Era in Human-Computer Interaction” will be held Friday, March 12, 2021. For more information and to register, please visit the event page.