Love Tech chat to Julie Blackburn after winning the Education and Learning Initiative of the Year award at the 2023 Media Isle of Man Awards for Excellence.
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00:00 So I'm here with Love Tech, who have won the Education Award.
00:04 And this is a group of women who have started
00:07 this wonderful charity that helps to inspire
00:12 and empower and encourage young women
00:17 to look at a career in STEM.
00:19 Do you want to tell me a bit about how you go about it?
00:24 - Yeah, so just to correct, men are involved
00:27 in running the charity as well, so we're all involved.
00:30 - That's fine, very well.
00:31 - We have some token men involved.
00:34 - That's okay.
00:35 - But it is a very female, powerful charity.
00:39 But we were set up to inspire and empower girls.
00:42 - Yes, but obviously you do also deal with boys as well.
00:46 - Yeah, and we don't exclude anybody, but we have events.
00:50 And the purpose is to role model,
00:53 to show role models in STEM.
00:57 So we use a lot of mentors that are in the Isle of Man,
01:00 and they're working in science, technology,
01:02 and engineering and math.
01:03 And we raise their profile, and we bring them to events,
01:07 and we show girls and boys that women are doing those jobs
01:11 on the Isle of Man, and amazing,
01:13 fantastically interesting jobs
01:16 that people don't really know about.
01:18 And we use those role models to show boys and girls
01:22 that that's possible.
01:23 - And you've seen about 5,500 kids
01:27 this year, haven't you?
01:28 - In the last couple of years,
01:29 we've been to all but one school on the Isle of Man,
01:34 primary education, and we've seen a lot
01:36 of high school students as well.
01:38 So we've run a primary school initiative,
01:42 but we've also done lots of other events
01:44 where we've met kids from every background,
01:47 homeschooled, teenagers.
01:50 We try and hit everybody.
01:52 And we also work on educating parents as well.
01:56 - Well, I was going to ask you,
01:57 you have a Tech Mums Award,
01:59 so that mums can keep up, apparently,
02:01 with their offspring. - So we have a mum tech course
02:03 starting in January, and this is the third year
02:07 that we've run that course for specially designed
02:11 to upskill and empower mums or other parents
02:16 that want to just get a little bit more confidence
02:20 around tech so that they can then support their kids.
02:24 - Excellent, well done.
02:26 - Thank you. - Thank you so much.
02:29 (silence)
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