It’s not rocket science – closing the gender gap in STEM

Prior to joining Friends of Europe, Dharmendra Kanani was director of policy at the European Foundation Centre (EFC). He was the England director at the Big Lottery Fund, the largest independent funder in the UK and fourth largest in the world. Dharmendra has held senior positions in the public and voluntary sectors and advisor to numerous ministerial policy initiatives across the UK.

Olivier Crouzet designed the pedagogical model of Ecole 42, the tech school founded by Xavier Niel: 100%-project-based, without any teacher or lecture. Students debate, exchange ideas, try, fail, try again, to reach the goal. This new, advanced training methodology has been a success and the school is in the process of creating campuses in 20 countries across the world. The school has pledged to attract more women in STEM fields. In five years, it has doubled the number of female students, aiming to reach 35% of women in the school by 2020.

Stefaan Hermans was Head of Cabinet of Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility in the Juncker Commission, where he helped her promote vocational training and lifelong learning, as well as ensuring equal opportunities for all on the labour market. He is now Director of Policy Strategy and Evaluation at DG EAC, the directorate in charge of developing best practices in education policy, gathering and disseminating knowledge, and advancing educational policy reforms at the national and regional levels. He previously worked as Head of the Universities and Researcher Unit in DG Research and Innovation.

Trudy Morgan is a civil engineer and has worked on projects both in Europe and in Africa. She led three international teams across 17 countries, designing and constructing buildings. As Technical Coordinator of UNOPS, she worked on the landslide remediation project following the collapse in 2017 of Sugarloaf Mountain in Sierra Leone. In 2017, Trudy was awarded Female Engineer of the year by the Next Einstein Forum. She’s the first female Vice President of the Sierra Leone Institution of Engineers and co-founded the “Sierra Leone Women Engineers” organisation. Most recently, she made history as the first African female Fellow of the prestigious Institution of Civil Engineers.

Lindsey currently leads W4 (Women’s WorldWide Web), Europe’s first crowdfunding platform dedicated to connecting and empowering girls and women around the world through education, microfinance and mentoring. With a focus on Sustainable Development Goal 5b, W4 promotes girls’ and women’s equal access to Information and Communication Technologies. In 2009 Lindsey won the Independent MBA Student of the Year Award and she was named a ‘Women in IT Role Model’ by the European Commission in 2013. In 2018 Lindsey joined the Board of Directors of the Women’s Economic Imperative to take forward the work of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment.