A partnership for women in STEM

In what can be a boost for women to pursue into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, mathematics) fields and medicine, biopharmaceutical major Biocon has joined hands with a University in Australia, pushing the way forward to educate and empower women to bring down underrepresentation of women in math and science related careers.

The thrust comes from the pioneer of the biotechnology industry Kiran MazumdarShaw who is helping change cultural milieu that discourages women from pursuing careers in science.

To bring gender equity in STEM and ensure that women get equal opportunities, Shaw has tied up with Australia’s Deakin University to offer high value scholarships to women in the sector.

According to Shaw the idea is to develop “good thinking” and “learning processes” to augment innovation among young women students and their getting together with Deakin University is about “integrated learning”.

“Innovative thinking is what we are trying to get people to do. At Biocon academy we run a program to get people to understand how to go about project management, problem solving in industry. Here what we are trying to do is we are trying to step back and see how do we get young students to start thinking in a analytical way that allows them to innovate better and we believe that this program that we are developing jointly with Deakin is about integrated learning where we really believe that if you do an integrated learning program that straddles across STEM(science, technology, engineering, mathematics) and medicine you will be able to actually get young students to think in an integrated way. So it’s a combination of designed thinking, analytical thinking and combining technologies,” she said.

Shaw feels that it is important to blast through “silo” mentality and create a culture of “innovation” and “relevant education”.

“No longer you can think in silos…you can’t just think about science or you just can’t think about engineering or just mathematics, today there is a combination of computational science, life science, engineering. So, I think it is relevant education. The whole concept of leaning in silos has disappeared. There is a no longer about specialized silo-like thinking. Unless you develop these comprehensive integrated programmes you will not be able to or enable young people to think about how to innovate,” she added.

The scholarship will be awarded as 100 per cent tuition fee waiver for the entire duration of the study at Deakin University for the women choosing to opt for a STEM programme.

Women will enjoy priviledged access to scholarships that intends to promote and help them continue to carve out their places in professional roles.

Professor Jane Den Hollander, Vice Chancellor and President Deakin University stated that the scholarship is expected to encourage more women come forward in the field.

“There is a big emphasis on women because there are fewer women who are into science and technology. We are offering some encouragement to women,” she said.

Shaw said when she started Biocon, her objective was to attract more women in the filed and ensure that women get their due and she is happy that her objective has been fulfilled. “When I started Biocon my main aim was that I wanted women scientists to pursue a career in science and today 45 per cent employees in R&D are women in Biocon. I am very happy because we have been able to attract women. That part of my objective has been fulfilled”.

She decided to join hands with Deakin, because she feels that Deakin has a fantastic way of education- it has a contemporary way of educating young minds and it is also about designed thinking approach to education.

“The idea with this kind of a programme with Deakin is students become good at innovation and become innovator, going forward because I really believe in a country like India with the kind of challenges and problems that we face everyday there are these enormous opportunities to innovate and make businesses from this kind of innovation and that’s the jobs of the future for India.”

First Published: Mar 27, 2019 16:41 IST