INNOVATEHER SEEKS SUPPORT FOR GAMES COURSES AIMED AT YOUNG GIRLS

Women in Games’ work aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and is primarily focused on Goal 5: ‘Achieve Gender Equality & Empower all Girls and Women’. We believe education is one of the key components to achieving this goal and education is one of the key spaces we act in and one of our 11 priority action areas.

Therefore we are delighted to be able to highlight and support the work of UK based social enterprise InnovateHER. Launched in 2013, it works with girls as young as 12 to encourage them to consider a career in tech, and, ultimately, to progress gender equality in the sector. The organisation is now looking to launch a new games programme, and we caught up with Co-Founder Chelsea Slater to find out more…

Can you give us an overview of your organisation and what you have achieved to date?
InnovateHer is a social enterprise on a mission to get girls ready for the tech industry, and the tech industry ready for girls. We work with young people in schools to improve their future tech career aspirations through interactive and inspiring workshops and eLearning courses, as well as support the tech industry to create inclusive workplaces which support women and the next generation once they get there.

All of our programmes are free for schools and funded by our partners. We have worked with over 40,000 students to date.

Our ambition is to work with 1 million girls/ non-binary people by 2032, globally ensuring they all know there is a place in the tech industry for them.

What are your ambitions in the games space?
Pre-COVID, we had a successful Games Design course that we delivered in schools face-to-face. We now want to re-design this for the virtual environment and roll this out on our e-learning platform, for schools and students aged 13-17 to use in and out of the classroom.

What are you looking for in terms of support from the industry?
To do this, we are looking for investment from a company, that could co-brand the course and give it the recognition it deserves. We’re also looking for companies to give us smaller investments to roll this out across the country and support schools within their local area.

Aside from investment, we are also looking for ambassadors to become role models for InnovateHer students within the classroom, bringing the content to life.

To find out more about InnovateHER, click here.