Women in STEM 

WISE: Women in STEM Entrepreneurship Program

Late in 2018, Koonung received an invitation to send a team of girls to the Monash University WISE Program. Earlier in Term 2, our team attended a full-day (10-hour) program to learn about STEM-based entrepreneurship. These are some thoughts and reflections they had after the day.

The day was intense and exhausting, but in the end we created something we could all be proud of. We had to develop an entrepreneurial idea based on the Internet of Things (IoT), i.e. to come up with a new 'smart' product. It was a valuable learning experience, and gave us a range of insights about the technology. We had to generate an innovative idea, rapidly prototype it, and then construct a 'pitch', Shark Tank-style!

The day was a hands-on experience, which required us to think independently. Even our mentor could not offer direct answers to our questions, so we had to solve problems ourselves. Periodically we would report back to our 'tribe', a group of other student teams, for constructive feedback. The women who spoke to us, a range of technology and business experts, were an inspiration. We learned so much from the whole day.

For more information about WISE, please visit https://www.monash.edu/it/wise