The Social Council of the Polytechnic University of Valencia has launched the Steam Chair in order to promote STEAM education among young students in the Valencian Community, provide information on scientific and technological careers and publicize the wide range of professional possibilities of STEAM, with a focus on reducing the gender gap in these disciplines.
An initiative aimed at joining efforts, seeking synergies and promoting projects that contribute to shaping an educational and training system that eliminates gender stereotypes associated with certain vocations and professions. In total, sixteen employers, among which are leading companies in the Valencian Community, institutions, unions and foundations; will join this Chair, including Hidraqua.
Thus, the company that manages the integral water cycle has been working for years on several projects linked precisely to this theme. For example, together with its Foundation, Fundación Aquae, it carries out the Aquae STEM educational program to promote scientific vocations in girls. In the Valencian Community, around 500 schoolchildren participate today; and has also collaborated in several editions of the Technovation Challenge program.
According to Amelia Navarro, director of Sustainable Development and Equity at Hidraqua, “we maintain a strong commitment to equal opportunities for women and men. Promoting future careers for girls is one of the lines of work that is joined by other actions such as participation in programs such as Cross Mentoring, Lidereses organized by the CEV and Valencia Activa; Promociona organized by CEOE and ESADE, and EOI Women organized by the School of Industrial Organization; as well as other internal programs led by the Hidraqua business group, among others».
Within the Steam chair of the UPV, among other activities, lectures by teachers, sociologists, pedagogues, businessmen, professionals or authorities, relevant for their experience, open to the attendance of both teachers and students of the UPV or secondary education will be promoted. and people from outside the University, as well as the rapprochement with the business reality and its demand, through activities, programs or courses taught by businessmen, professionals or managers and teaching staff of the UPV whose content will develop different perspectives in around the culture of STEAM and how to transmit it to high school students, their families and schools and institutes.
The Social Council of the UPV explains that the STEAM Chair also seeks to provide a solution to one of the main difficulties that companies are currently facing due to the lack of specialized technological profiles. Programming, Big Data, robotics, Artificial Intelligence and cybersecurity, among many other technologies, are the ones with the greatest job future and the best paid.
