Sparked by George Floyd’s death in early June, we gained a heightened awareness of the #BLM movement and we began to ask ourselves what we could do as a company to pledge our support. We didn’t feel that we were in a position to make a statement at the time, as we wanted to do something tangible – more than just professing words.
We have spent the last two months reflecting on our journey, our purpose, and our actions to understand the tangible contribution we can make to support greater diversity in our organisation.
OUR TEAM: Our team is small and we are all Caucasian, and we have become acutely aware of our own unconscious bias when it comes to reaching and profiling Indigenous peoples and other culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups.
ACTION: We have initiated our Indigenous and CALD Freelance Writers program – we are inviting and taking expressions of interest from freelance writers, who are from traditionally under-represented groups in the STEM workforce, to contribute to our blogs with their perspectives and wisdom.
Through this paid opportunity we want to hear and amplify the voices of those less frequently heard in this space.
EduDrone: Since creating She Maps four years ago, we’ve had a strong focus on increasing the number of women in the STEM workforce and we will continue to do this.
We make a point of challenging the many unconscious biases that exist in our society around the role women play in society and the workforce.
Last year at our EduDrone conference we made a strong statement by having an equal number of male and female speakers across our 40 speakers.
But upon reflection we didn’t do enough to invite and reach Indigenous and other CALD speakers.
ACTION: EduDrone 2020 will continue to have equality of male:female speakers, and we will increase the diversity of our speakers list to include more non-white voices.
We know that our actions will not change the world on their own. But with small, incremental improvements to whose voices we amplify, we will make the destination we are aiming for – diversity in STEM – truly diverse.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Karen and Paul
Co-founders
She Maps is Australia’s leading expert in drone and geospatial education.
She Maps assist schools with the purchasing of drones, school-industry created drone and geospatial teaching resources and highly supportive teacher professional development.
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She Maps aims to bring much needed diversity and support to STEM. We do this by providing drone and geospatial programs to teachers and schools across the globe.
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