(Abbie) Mum and dad started growing our interest in this stuff.
I remember building things like little electronic santa boards,
with flashing lights.
But it really really started for me in around Year Five.
I was part of an advanced group at school.
We entered the Robocop dance competition.
(Briana) And ever since then,
We've been building little Shrek robots
that picked up Fiona and took her away.
Or we did Madagascar where we dance to "Move it".
and our robot was in that.
And every year we'd come up with a new competition.
And we're still doing it.
[both laugh]
(Nicole) I didn't really know what I wanted to study at school.
I was good at maths and science,
but I didn't want to do straight maths or science.
A lot of people suggested to me
that I try out engineering as an applied science and maths degree.
Once I got here I started to really like it.
(Leana) I loved maths in high school.
And I sort of saw programming as an application
of the logic behind maths.
I saw computer science as a way of being able to still do something
that I really enjoyed.
But be creative as well.
(Jenine) Think about the technology you use every day.
It's in every aspect of our lives.
And think about who are the people that are developing that technology.
The statistics at the moment in terms of women's representation,
it's really sad.
And I think girls have a really unique opportunity
to firstly be part of a great industry,
and actually be part of creating the future.
(Molly) I think there are so few girls in engineering
because girls are not encouraged to study science and mathematics
when they're younger.
I went to an all-girls school
and there was only ten or so girls in my physics and mathematics classes.
Of these girls, about half of us are studying engineering now,
but that doesn't make many.
(Prof. Catchpole) The disparity between girls and boys
in science and engineering is very deep seated.
If you look back to the toys that girls get,
it's very gender dominated.
So it's something that society really needs to recognize
that girls have equal ability
and can have equal interest in this area.
And it's actually quite culturally specific,
'cause in a lot of Asian cultures,
girls going into ICT,
for example, is seen as perfectly normal.
(Abbie) There probably weren't very many girls interested in IT
because of the perceptions around it.
Everyone thinks IT is just "Let's learn to use Microsoft Word."
And "Let's learn to use Microsoft Publisher."
"And Excel.
And we're gonna make brochures for our IT class today."
They don't actually realize what IT is.
(Jessica) You need strong people skills to work in computer science.
You need to collaborate with other people a lot,
other programmers.
other engineers.
people who design user interfaces.
You need to be able to communicate well.
And you can also work in a lot of different areas.
You don't have to do programming if you don't want to.
(Abbie) To me, IT is one of the best things in the world.
You're designing things.
You're building things from scratch.
You're working with other people in teams.
Girls are definitely natural team members,
team leaders, really, really good at organization.
You can see it,
it's something that we do really really well.
(Molly) I think in practice,
females are generally better at communicating.
And this is a very big part of engineering
in terms of dealing with the client,
and understanding the client's needs,
and turning them into what we actually need to design for them.
(Leana) Design, interaction, and business analyst roles
often attract females.
When I was quite young,
I just though, IT, that's just writing code,
or building networks.
But that's actually just a very small minority of it.
(Prof.Catchpole) Engineering is a spectrum.
It's not just the going out and building bridges.
There's an enormous range of activities that it covers.
There's lots of opportunities to make a difference.
It can be in clean energy.
It can be in biomedical engineering.
It can be in creating greener chemical processes.
There's lots and lots of ways to help the world
using science and engineering.
(Leana) Well, it's important for any industry to be balanced.
Half of the users of any software system,
of any computer, are gonna be female.
So we can't really rely on men to just come up with the design
for all computer systems.
Females should have some input too.
(Jessica) Well, my parents never really encouraged me
to do computer science.
It's not like medicine or law.
They were kind of pushing me into those areas.
But I actually think that
computer science is more like the new "law" these days.
There are so many jobs, you can take it anywhere around the world.
There's a lot of money in it.
So I think my parents are quite happy with the choice I made.
(Jenine) There is such demand for people in tech and engineering fields,
that we need every single one of you to think about
coming into the industry and joining us.
♪ [theme music]