Hackergal encouraging young female and gender diverse students to pursue STEAM related careers

The Toronto-based Hackergal comes to Calgary, encouraging girls and gender-diverse students to pursue science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics job

A Toronto-based non-profit that showcases STEAM programs and digital literacy for girls and gender-diverse youth is spreading the word in Calgary this week.

Hackergal is a national non-profit organization that has programs working with young girls and gender diverse students focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM).

The organizations’ goal is to have more women enter the work force in fields that are typically male-dominated.

“What we’re continuing to see is the lack of representation that can create that sense of ‘I don’t belong here’”, said Erin Westbrook, Hackergal’s people and operations leader.

“And that’s a lot of what Hackergal does,” she said. “Through our various programing is to show our students that yes you do, yes you can by showing our career carousels, by saying hey there’s other women leaders in STEAM.”

Westbrook says the organization has come up with a student ambassador program for Grades 9 to 12, to build leadership skills where select students host their peers in school STEAM clubs.

“They have the opportunity to run a hacker girl club, and that’s building not only the technical skills, but those leadership skills as well,” she said. “The leadership is so critical because then you’re thinking of (things like), ‘Who’s writing policy? Who’s influencing decision-making? Who’s leading? Who’s starting up - it’s the CEOs and that’s what we love to encourage, all of our students to dream big.”

Yusra Hashmi, 16, got interested in STEAM activities when she was in Grade 5. Now she’s an ambassador, hosting other students at lunchtime meetings.

Her dream is to one day work in the technology field.

“I feel like technology makes things easier to work with,” she said. “It might be harder to work with subjectively, but it’s easier to make other things around you better and just make the world a better place.”

Hashmi is in Grade 10 but she’s already planning to work in a field she’s passionate about.

“Recently I’ve discovered something called bioinformatics,” she said. “Which is basically biology and chemistry combined with computer science so I think that’s really cool because I love coding and I also love science.

“Hackergal has helped me with problem-solving,” she added, “like putting my ideas out there as a woman -- that’s important. (It makes me feel like) my opinions matter.”

Aleeza Habib, 14, is a student ambassador at her school where she’s working with other girls and gender diverse students over the lunch hour.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays we meet up in my math science teachers classroom,” she said. “In the beginning, like the first 20 minutes, I just tell them what we’re going to do, how we’re going to start this off and then I just let them code and then if they need help, they’ll call me over and then I’ll help them.”

Habib says being an ambassador is building her confidence and she loves science.

“There are ‘arts’ in STEAM but when I think of STEAM I normally think of the more science and math aspects and like the tech aspects of it,” she said.

“Some of my favorite science units so far have been chemistry,” she added. “We’re doing environmental chemistry right now in school, it’s quite fun.”

Westbrook says the whole point of Hackergal is to give students opportunities to spark their joy and keep them in STEAM-related courses at a young age so they don’t drop out when they reach high school.

“The more that we can showcase role models, examples, (and) individuals who are doing incredible things, we do believe that does have an impact on helping individuals (by showing them) there’s someone who looks like me who’s doing something cool that I’m interested in, maybe I can do that too.”

Learn more about the organization here: Home - Hackergal - Code, Create, and Become a Tech Leader