CSPC 2017

Panel Organizers: Teddy Katz and Dr. Betsy McGregor  | SHAD

“Missing Numbers” will explore how Canada can rethink its policies to more fully equip and empower girls and women to help solve its innovation crisis over the next 50 years. Despite Canada’s impressive resources, our country falls short in punching above its weight as a global leader solving the compelling challenges the world currently faces.

Through powerful personal stories of ‘Trail-blazers’ and ‘Path-makers’, this panel will shed light on hurdles still confronting some of Canada’s best and brightest girls and women in STEMM – and some policy strategies to close the gender gap, strengthen diversity and achieve inclusiveness in firing up Canada’s innovation performance.

A survey by Microsoft found young girls in Europe become interested in STEM subjects around 11 but then lose interest at around 15. A couple of the issues noted were a lack of female role models in STEM subjects, a need for mentors and a need for more hands-on STEM experiences inside and outside the classroom.

SHAD is a case study that meets this challenge head-on in Canada. Mentoring 16,000 young Canadians over 37 years in its summer programs on university campuses nationally, SHAD has produced 32 Rhodes Scholars and multiple Science Fair winners.  Close to 60 percent of its participants the past 3 years have been girls. The majority go on to study STEM in university.
“Missing Numbers” SHAD panel includes four up-and-coming ‘Pathmakers’ and SHAD students - or Fellows as they’re known - Emily Cross, Winnica Beltrano, Amanda Adam and Bethel Samson.  Their stories speak powerfully to persisting bias, hurdles of race and obstacles in rural and remote communities. Equally, each speaks to solutions, inspiring mentors and a shared optimism for a future where their energy and talent can reach its full potential.  

‘Trailblazer’ Melanie Martin, Professor of Physics who is forging a career at the frontier of MRI technology, will address opportunities and challenges girls face entering careers in STEM and address what Canada needs to do more of to foster more diversity in groups of researchers to make scientific breakthroughs.  Erin Engelhardt is a patent agent and the program director of SHAD at Carleton University. As a patent agent, Erin positions Canadian inventors and small companies for success through strategic development of their patent portfolios. Erin’s ‘Shadditude’ formula reaches for a vision of inclusiveness that inspires.

‘Trailblazer’ Paulina Cameron a Director of Futurpreneur in BC and the Yukon will speak to coding, mentorship and global issues and challenges where Canada could become a leader with a strengthened role for girls and women at the frontiers of innovation. First Nation engineer and professor Sarah Gauthier grounds her presentation in the reality of being a breakthrough leader in her community. She raises our sights to actions embedded in the Truth and Reconciliation Report and shines light on the unmet power of matching Canada’s ‘Western Science’ with respect and learning from Indigenous and Local Systems of Knowledge.