Nimisha Brahmbhatt is an award-winning Strategic Advisor to FTSE 100 & Fortune 500 companies. She has also guided tech start-ups and is a key investor in advancing technologies servicing Government bodies and private enterprises in healthcare, conservation and Energy Management.

Her extensive experience has helped her to realise more girls need to get involved in STEM if they are to have equality and a voice in the technological evolution that is taking place.

Here, in a think piece for Aspirations Academies Trust, she reveals the urgent reasons why girls need to take an active interest in science if they are to continue to play a vital role in the future.

‘’It would be futile to deny the pervasiveness of technology and modern day society’s reliance on it.

It has become an unavoidable part of everyday life for us all, from its use in communication to developments in AI, robotics and even healthcare.

The future is STEM and it is crucial that we ensure girls from all backgrounds understand that they have a key role to play in crafting the future they will be living in.

Girls should be encouraged to take an interest in STEM to enable them to compete fairly for work roles to ensure almost 50% of the global population is not suppressed or disadvantaged by the advent of the next technological evolution.

As I write this, I am acutely aware of just how dependant our advancement has become on technology and the principles of science, engineering and mathematics to support the new era of societal evolution.  

When it comes to the topic of why STEM is an important topic of interest to girls, I couldn’t think of a more compelling argument to push more young girls into STEM than those I lay out below.

I personally didn’t come from a STEM background but at the start of my career over a decade ago, I found myself increasingly working with technology in every aspect of my work.

The more I worked on the convergence of technology with the most basic aspects of our everyday lives and learnt how much tech was changing our world, it became apparent to me that we could be heading towards a suppression of the female gender like no other.

One would have to be living on a desert island not to notice that the advent of Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality has advanced at an accelerated pace over the past two decades.

The biggest issue with this for me, was the fact that 70% of the people advancing and programming this technology were men.

The impact of living in a world where almost all of the tech consumed as a woman, has been programmed by a gender with no experience of what it means to navigate the world as one, is not one I have heard discussed.

Although the impact of male dominated tech advancement is not immediately detectable, it’s not that different to learning that studies around current health trends including intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets and high intensity training are based on the male metabolic response. Until recently, women have not been studied in the world of high performance and nutrition.

What kind of world is created if we don’t consider the requirements of women in the advancement of STEM? 

If the pundits are right and machines are set to take over many of the jobs we currently do, isn’t it essential that more women are included in the building, programming and development of technology artificial intelligence? This would ensure the constantly evolving world we currently do and will live in, has a fair representation of men and women.

In order for this to take place, there is a need to ensure girls from all backgrounds understand they have a key role to play in crafting the future they will be living.

Girls should be encouraged to take an interest in STEM to enable them to compete fairly for work roles to ensure almost 50% of the global population is not suppressed or disadvantaged by the advent of the next technological evolution.’’