Aguascalientes, Ags., January 16, 2023.- Last week took place at the Panamericana the camp of the program developed at MIT called Beautiful Patterns, which promotes Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills.STEMskills (STEM). This project was initiated by Abel Sanchez, a Mexican who wanted programming skills to be fostered in girls because of the deficit of women in computer science professions.
MIT Camp
The university was able to carry out this program in Aguascalientes due to a combination of aspirations of different people so that the young women of our state also learn these skills. Mercedes Urzúa, Director of the School of Engineering, together with Dr. Claudia Nallely Sánchez Gómez, Research Secretary, and Fernanda Zavala, Artificial Intelligence student, were in charge of organizing this project on behalf of UP.
Mylenna López Castro, President of the IEEE Engineering Institute Aguascalientes section, and three MIT students: Anna, Kira and Mercy, who were the main forces for the success of this plan.
Project objectives
The project started from the idea that the technical side of computing is starting to become basic information that everyone must have and skills that everyone must know if they want to enter the industrial arena. These skills will be increasingly essential in most business positions.
Mercedes Urzúa, Director of the School of Engineering comments, "Artificial intelligences learn from what we ask them to do, but someone programs them at the beginning. What the girls learn in this course are the basics of programming these artificial intelligences, applications or games. Sixty-four girls from different schools are taking the course.
Mylenna López explains that "in Aguascalientes we see that girls, especially those who study in public schools, do not include university in their life plan because they do not think they have the possibility of going to one. In recent months we went to primary and secondary schools in the state to give workshops on aerospace engineering, renewable energies and robotics, and we saw that all the girls are very interested and realize that they are capable. We want that, with these programs like the one that UP invites us to, the girls put studying at the university within their plans".
All week, the girls went to the Aguascalientes campus to attend the program. Some of them came daily from more distant municipalities, such as Tepezalá, so as not to miss this opportunity to learn that programming and technology are tools they can use to achieve the goals they set for themselves.
The event concluded on Friday at the Museo Descubre, with a play titled Women in Sciencein which the girls and attendees were able to learn about women throughout history who have made revolutionary inventions in science. In addition to the presentation of awards to each of the students who completed the program.
"These projects are important not only for what they learn, but also to give visibility to the large gender gap that exists in the engineering field. I truly hope that this event has been rewarding for all the girls and that it inspires them to continue exploring their interests in technology and science, that they have a future full of learning and experiences and we hope to have them back very soon at Universidad Panamericana", Mercedes concluded.
