Presenters: Emily McKaskle and Joyce Witowski, FRC 2468

Many FRC teams struggle with getting girls to join; once girls join, teams struggle with keeping them engaged and motivating them to take leadership positions. This workshop will be a one-hour interactive session in 2-parts. Part 1: Using prior surveys and audience participation, Identify what we believe to be the top roadblocks keeping girls from joining, staying engaged, and stepping-up. Part 2: Ideate potential solutions that can be best achieved by collaboration across FIRST Teams. It is expected that the takeaway from the workshop will be an action plan that we agree to work on over the months leading up to the 2024-2025 season, and attendees should be prepared to support the follow-up initiative.

About Emily and Joyce

Emily McKaskle has been a FIRST LEGO League coach for 5 teams over the past 9 years, all of which were at least 50% female. In addition to coaching teams, she has worked to spread STEM access across central Texas by volunteering for and coordinating dozens of FLL events. She’s served as an FRC outreach mentor for the past two years. Emily is an award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling author of over forty books and the owner of Fidgety Firefly Books. She has extensive experience as a public speaker, both as a writer and as an advocate for STEM education.

Joyce Witowski is currently an outreach mentor for FRC 2468 in Austin, Tx. Joyce has been with the team for about 15 seasons in various roles, but now primarily works on accessibility-focused initiatives and presentation skills development. Joyce recently retired from NXP Semiconductor, where she led internal efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and >70% water recycling as Sr. Director for Sustainable Manufacturing. Joyce was recognized for her many contributions to the semiconductor and overall manufacturing community as a Manufacturing Institute 2024 Women Make Award Honoree. Joyce has a BA in Chemistry from Washington and Jefferson College and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University.