Outbox Incubator – 1 year on…

What happens when you place 112 super talented young women in a supportive, collaborative environment, nurture and challenge them and give them access to motivational and experienced leaders in the digital, STEM and business realms?

Stemettes sought to find this out last year as they kicked off the Outbox Incubator. What ensued was 6 weeks of character development, confidence building and an emergence of a fleet of extraordinary female STEM entrepreneurs, not only ready for success, but also, as a group, ready to support and influence other peers with a passion for STEM and a drive to execute and deliver on their talents. Stemettes are planning on hosting a second Outbox Incubator in Dublin 2017/18 – watch this space!

Since Outbox Incubator, participants have been involved in numerous interesting and exciting events and activities; from starting up their own businesses, to coaching at coding clubs and most recently, speaking at Inpirefest, Europe’s leading sci-tech and Arts festival, hosted in Dublin, Ireland.

Here some of them share their experience and what they’ve been up to since the programme.

Niamh Scanlon, Founder of Recharge my eCar

“Since Outbox Incubator, I have been awarded EU Digital Girl of the Year 2015. This award is given to girls who have shown an interest in coding and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and are encouraging more girls to get involved. I have also spoken at International Woman’s Day (run by Accenture in Dublin), at the Minds and Machines Europe Conference in Paris (run by General Electric) and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where I met people like Will.i.am, Bono and Ariana Huffington. Over the past few months I have been working on my app, Auto-Journalist, which won runner-up in Apps at the Coolest Projects Awards 2016 in June. I’m still using all the skills I’ve learned at Outbox, particularly how to give public talks.

At Inspirefest 2016, I got to meet up with lots of the other Outbox Execs which was a lot of fun! The event was amazing and I loved talking about coding and CoderDojo on stage.”

Vanessa Greene, Founder of LooRate and Cofounder of Leanu Tech

“On Friday I was lucky enough to speak alongside Outbox execs, Edel, Elle and Niamh, about our experience of Outbox at Silicon Republic’s second annual Inspirefest. We shared this panel with Outbox Incubator co-founder, Mary Carty and Inspirefest founder Ann O’ Dea. I couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate array of women to share a panel with as I am inspired by these women on a regular basis.

I spent three weeks in the Outbox house where I worked on two different startups whilst also focusing on my personal growth. These startups were LooRate, an application to allow the rating of public restrooms, and Leanú Technologies, building bespoke applications for businesses. Unfortunately in the past academic year these startups were put on hold but I’ve many plans in mind for LooRate.

The lessons I learnt in Outbox weren’t put to waste as many sessions have translated into improving many of my personal and business skills, they have also come in very handy to have when it comes to my studies. Not only did the sessions teach me very essential lessons, they also inspired me to continue the gender conversation into the rest of my passions, creating Echoing STEM. Echoing STEM is a YouTube channel and blog which aims to inspire young people into STEM by discussing it with various people in industry and musicians.

I am very grateful to have spoken at Inspirefest. I attended the event last year and am so pleased with its growth. I am astound by the quality of every talk at the event. It is rare to see so many passionate and noteworthy speeches after one another. The name Inspirefest really does it justice! You will without a doubt be inspired consistently throughout the event.”

Learn more about Stemettes on their website and connect with them on Twitter.

Check out Stemettes NEW OtotheB App: A place for people to meet, receive advice from women in STEM, discover role model profiles, STEM event listings and weekly competitions.