This morning, I head out to my alma mater (Mt St Mary's College Namagunga) I've not been there since I picked my O'level certificate and had vowed never to return because I definitely suffered trauma whilst there.(Strict Catholic Nuns, Only girls' school, you can imagine the trauma. See Lady Gaga and Paris Hilton for further illustration) But today, I return. And happily so, to launch a STEM camp. Zimba is partnering with Lacel Technologies, United States Uganda Mission, Women Techmakers and others to run a camp to ignite girls’ natural curiosity and creativity while they build critical thinking and problem solving skills related to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
It was in the dingy computer lab in Namagunga that my love for computer science was firmly planted not by the school but by a chance encouter with 2 volunteer Computer Science students from the University of Uwaterloo. I remember being regaled with tales of the things they were working on and going online to see the university,this was definitely what I was going to do. Alas, I never did make it to UWaterloo but I did end up with a degree in CS. And I do believe I'm doing awesome things with that degree.
So today, I go back to regal young uncertain girls like how I must have been tens of yrs ago on tales of STEM in particular, computer science and the beauty of what you can do with it. Armed with my story and one of another classmate and woman that I'm incredibly proud of who's now an engineer at Apple. Yes, Steve Jobs' Apple. Super excited. Super proud.
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