Illuminate x Durham, Future of Women in STEM Conference!

Hi everyone! My name is Akshiha and I am a Grade 10 student at Pickering High School. Today, I had the pleasure to attend Illuminate x Durham’s regional conference. Here are my thoughts highlighting what I learned about this conference, and the Future of Women working in STEM!

From witnessing the other teams in the room I was placed in with my team, my eyes were opened to multiple doors of creative and innovative ideas for this case study. Moreover, my group members and I did not have much background knowledge about this case study, but the fact that we've come this far proves we've learnt something valuable with Illuminate.

I learnt quite a lot from both of the keynote speakers, especially the main objective between the two is that our words have validation. Our words do value something, and no one should push you down and change that for the better future. Rather than taking this as an learning experience, I take Illuminate x Durham as what I contributed to this opportunity I had like Ms. Ilona Dougherty had mentioned. I think that I was very grateful that I could come, and meet, and learn so much about everyone's innovative ideas, just proves that there's a lot of creative minds out there.

I really enjoyed the keynote speakers the most, because their talks were so inspiring and empowering, it was a phenomenal workshop!

Well, I think I've learnt to express my thought process more often to the public, or as my fellow teammates/peer in any situation if I feel like my words are valid. I'd like to thank the CEO, Alina Huang for this great opportunity and for building such a a resource like Illuminate!