Over the past few months, I've been doing more work with people entering the tech sector, and I recently signed up as a STEM Ambassador. This is a brilliant scheme that connects people working in science, tech, engineering and maths with schools and young people. In tech, we know there’s a shortage of skilled people and this is a great opportunity to help inspire young minds. We also still have work to do to challenge stereotypes. Many girls, starting from a young age, do not see STEM as a space for them. That assumption is one part of the reason why Tech is still male-dominated.
My introduction was via a WCIT talk introducing the STEM Ambassador scheme. They talked us through the very open requirements - this is open to anyone linked to STEM. You might be doing a job in Tech, a research scientist, a teacher, an accountant, an ecologist... Or maybe you're doing something unrelated but you have an education background in a STEM field? I have a friend who writes comedy these days, but he has a maths degree. All are interesting stories to tell.
The presentation also took us through the dashboard / control centre for the operation and I have to say I was impressed with the way it has been built. And I am quite difficult to impress on the web. They have carefully thought through the different forms of engagement and created an environment which respects your time. By that, I mean time given is mostly spent actually engaging with activities, not wrestling with the admin to find some way to help. It also has a pretty fine-grained filter so you can find the kind of activities that you want to do. I'm an introvert, and the idea of trying to engage a bunch of bored children is a long way from my idea of fun so it's important to me to know what I'm signing up for before diving in.
Anyway, around a month ago the usual essential but tedious paperwork and DBS checks were completed and I was allowed to sign up to Do Things and I thought I'd share my experiences. Maybe others will want to join me.
Initially I signed up as a judge for a couple of competitions. The first was the Young Coders competition 2025. The entrants had to write a game in Scratch with the theme "Budgeting Better". I was sent eleven games to play and review offline - so on this occasion there was no direct interaction with any children. I am both a programmer and a gamer so this felt like a safe starting point and I spent a few happy hours with Phil Wilson playing through them all and looking at the code. The standard was generally pretty high, and some of the games were really impressive. Who can say no to a bunch of free games?
Next up, the second competition. This one was judged via panel so very little up-front prep. There was a slight surprise for me when it turned out to be the BIEA international competition about the sustainable growth of the Earth's population, with a focus on farming. Whoops! Anyway, this was my fault and my role was to judge presentations not provide expertise into ecological farming so I dived in. I was worried though! Apparently they liked me, as my three sessions turned into six pretty quickly - they kept asking me back. This competition was very different to the first and involved direct interaction with children. They were amazing - and doubly so given most were speaking in second languages. The quality of the engineering and presentations on display was incredible and I found listening to them and talking through their ideas inspirational.
And then to round out the first month, I volunteered for an online question and answer session with I'm a Computer Scientist. This group is actually the reason I joined in the first place - fairly obviously getting people into Tech is closer to my heart than other fields - and I'd been looking forward to this. It was a text chat, so reminded me of the old Yahoo chatrooms of my youth and was an intense 40 mins of being bombarded with random questions. I was warned well ahead of time that kids can ask all kinds of odd things so I was kinda-prepared when the first question I got, within seconds, was "are you Anakin?". I assumed he didn't mean Anakin Aimers, Canadian junior curling champion, but even so I had to think quickly whether I am in fact the Chosen One.
This chat was invigorating and fun. Children given space come up with all kinds of strange thoughts and their questions shone a light on their hopes and fears ("are GCSEs hard?" came up a lot). I tried to be as open and encouraging as I could and something must have landed when the thanks at the end included someone saying "Tom is the man". Which I think is good.
So I've got through the first set of bookings and I have to say I've had a lot of fun. It is lovely being part of inspiring the next wave of STEM folk and inspirational hearing some of what they have to say. Now I need to decide what I want to do next with them! I'm still trying to find a Code Club or similar I can attend in person in Bath.
This does look like a significant time commitment for one month so I should note that I've jumped in like this because I have the opportunity. I'm enjoying a career break right now, so I could easily invest my time in this kind of support work - there is no requirement to do this much! The minimum commitment is one thing a year, and even then all that happens is your profile is archived until you reactivate it - they are happy to take more or less whatever time you offer.
I've found this work very engaging. If you are working in a STEM-adjacent field and want to give something back, I really encourage you to sign up as a STEM Ambassador. You can give as much or as little time as suits you - and you might just help someone see a future they hadn't imagined.
