The mission of San Diego-based Greater Than Tech is simple. They want to help guide, encourage and nurture the female scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
“When you see Fortune 500 companies, CEO’S — people in the C suite who are making decisions, you most likely will not see a woman,” explained Co-Founder Jasmine LeFlore “we want students to feel that they can be decision makers, create new opportunities for others, and really think about themselves as leaders at a young age,” she said.
The lack of female representation in STEM is one of the reasons LeFlore and fellow Co-Founder Dr. Brittany Wheeler created Greater Than Tech. The women, who are also engineers at Collins Aerospace in Chula Vista, hope to give girls the knowledge and confidence to pursue careers in science and technology.
Wheeler thinks women have a lot to offer the world of STEM. “It’s the self confidence, it’s the intuitiveness, we bring that into engineering and we want to solve problems. We put our heart and soul into anything we do as women, so we’re going to make sure that we do it right” she said.
Since Greater Than Tech launched in 2019, more than 200 girls have taken part in a community robotics project. During the 11-week program, students get to design, build and code robots and learn how to develop a business pitch.
The workshops are delivered to schools and organizations who have little or no access to robotics, and are often located in underserved areas of the county. Seventy percent of the students are from minority backgrounds.
Jacqueline Salinas is one of the nonprofit's success stories. The high school senior credits the program with helping her bag a scholarship to Columbia University to study mechanical engineering.
“I have always been interested in engineering, however, I thought that would stay a dream,” she said to KPBS, “it wasn’t until I joined Greater than Tech that I really started to learn more about engineering and that it really became a reality for me,” Salinas said.
Fellow Greater Than Tech student Alexandra Lawson also wants to become an engineer. She told KPBS that having strong females in STEM is vital for young girls. “I think it’s important that we have role models so that it can inspire them — that they can do this too”.
