The Dawoodi Bohra community of Vancouver hosted a virtual conference to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The fun and informative 30-minute session raised awareness among 30 young women and girls about the incredible career opportunities in STEM subjects.
The guest speakers were:
Dr. Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko
Founder & President of the Canadian Association for Girls in Science that she founded at the age of just 9 years old. She is a vision scientist and has completed her PhD, has been named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women (by the Globe & Mail) and advocates nationally for encouraging girls’ interest in Science, Trades, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Ms. Uzma Ali, B.Eng., MSc
Is a Business Intelligence Architect Lead. She is a passionate data scientist, inspiring mother, daughter, and wife. She loves to bike, hike and travel to learn more about and admire the world. She is always looking for the next challenge to find ways to give insights to BC Healthcare authorities. With 20+ years of experience in various information technology fields, she is ready to motivate the next generation of girls.
Ms. Zainab Mantri, B. Eng
An Implementation specialist, with 15+ years’ experience in content management and passionate about the environment. Zainab helps organizations manage their data so they can transition from paper to paperless organization.
Ms. Mantri spoke about why she chose her career in IT and what makes her job so exciting. She gave real life relatable examples of how she is one of the engineers behind the scenes that make an impact on day to day activities such as signing up for a summer camp and filling a form out for a lab test.
Dr. Vingilis-Jaremko spoke about her journey with CAGIS, shared the latest CAGIS Videos and then conducted a fun ice cream making activity for the girls. The girls followed along to make ice cream with her from simple ingredients found at home, thus demonstrating that Science can be fun!
Ms. Ali spoke about her journey to become an engineer, different computer languages used in the world of technology and spoke about how big data can be used to track global warming. She shared graphs representing a worldwide temperature increase of 2 degrees over the last 50 years.
Dr. Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko of CAGIS offered a free CAGIS Virtual session to each participant of the event. She commented, “It is wonderful that the Dawoodi Bohras of Vancouver are celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science by providing inspiring role models in STEM fields. STEM provides wonderful opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute to society. It is important that youth have role models they identify with so they can see the possibilities for their future selves.”
Ms Zainab Mantri said, “Every girl should get a chance to get a good education so that they can make a meaningful impact in the community they live in.”
Ms. Uzma Ali added that, “Opportunities in data analysis are endless and I hope to inspire girls to embrace the data explosion in the world.”
At the end of the event, there was a fun kahoot quiz for the attendees that was based on questions from the speakers’ presentation.
With a focus on hard work and education, many Dawoodi Bohras run successful businesses, creating jobs, generating wealth, and contributing to the growth and development of the nation. Women in the Bohra community play an equal role in pursuing an education and have thriving careers in industries such as IT, healthcare and business.