Statistics reflect what leaders like Yogini Parkhi know from experience. At a key moment in many girls’ lives, they’re nudged away from interests like math and science. “I know it happened to me growing up in India,” says Parkhi, the engineering leader for GE Vernova’s Grid OS Data Fabric and Connect business. She saw the same thing happen with her daughter years later in the States. “When she was 10 she could solve a Rubik’s Cube in 50 seconds,” Parkhi recalls. “But she pulled away from puzzles and math competitions because of social pressure telling her these were ‘boy things.’”
When this happened, a new initiative by the GE Women’s Network, as it was known, had just sponsored its first handful of summer camps for girls to foster their interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Parkhi, who joined the company 14 years ago, was inspired. She volunteered at her first GE-sponsored girls’ STEM camp in 2018, at her then home in San Ramon, California. Today, the program goes by the name STEAM Girls at GE Vernova, and the Bellevue, Washington–based Parkhi is its company-wide chief sponsor.
A Mind for Science
Now in its second year, STEAM Girls operates 15 summer camps in seven countries, where girls aged 13 to 15 explore science, technology, engineering, and math with women working in STEM fields. The sessions are led by volunteers from GE Vernova sites. The addition of an “A” to the STEM acronym reflects what Parkhi calls a subtle difference in orientation. “Girls have a distinct point of view when it comes to sciences, and it’s often a bit more creative,” she says. “So the ‘A’ signifies art, but also our commitment not to try to fit girls to science, but to fit the science experience to girls’ ways of doing things.”
The approach, Parkhi explains, is based on years of observation by volunteers at the camps. “Girls tend to see beauty in machines,” she says. “They use robots and blocks in artistic ways. They even design gears with a certain function that are also beautiful.” Girls at one camp built and programmed a robot using block code and JavaScript, but also made a movie in which the robot starred.
In leading the aspiring engineers through an array of activities — extracting DNA, making lip balm, building and racing a solar-powered car — volunteers are also instilling in them the “One Team” pillar at the core of the GE Vernova Way: supporting one another’s growth to succeed as a global team. “The STEAM Girls program brings together not only girls who participate in the program, but employees, teachers, universities, and families to build with us and experience the wonder of science in tangible ways. Because the way we build great things at GE Vernova is to come together.”
From Curiosity to Creation
According to the International Energy Agency, “a total of more than 30 million jobs could be created in clean energy, efficiency and low-emissions technologies by 2030.” Recognizing this fast-growing need for talent, GE Vernova has its sights set on finding tomorrow’s best and brightest through programs like Future Leaders of Energy, the MIT-GE Vernova and Climate Alliance, and STEAM Girls. Parkhi remains on the front lines of this effort, leading activities at the STEAM Girls camp run out of GE Vernova’s offices in Bellevue and overseeing the global program as it evolves to meet the coming demand for bright, creative women innovators.
At the end of each session is an online closing ceremony that brings together groups of campers to show off their work. “It’s very gratifying to see them go through stages,” Parkhi says. “They’re very inquisitive in the beginning, then move on to build something tangible.” Next year, sites in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, India, as well as in Poland are scheduled to join the existing STEAM Girls camps in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and Switzerland. The University of Washington is the current program partner, providing resources and facilities for camp activities, and past partners have included MIT, Mills College, and UC Berkeley. Parkhi is excited about upcoming plans to collaborate with the Society of Women Engineers and its alumni program.
Since the STEAM Girls program is still in its infancy, volunteers have yet to see its alumni enter the GE Vernova workforce or, as yet, even college. But its sites now run auctions to fund scholarships, reflecting GE Vernova’s commitment to foster these same passions well after middle and high school is over. “These girls have different expectations of the world from the ones we had when we were their age,” she says. “They’re bolder and braver. They will ask for a better shoe to fit their feet. They ask for a better hard hat. They’ll ask for a better machine — and set out to make it themselves.”