Today we’d like to introduce you to Navya Ramakrishnan, Aishwarya Sudarshan and Kayley Vu.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Of course! So, with the change to a virtual environment technology continues to have an increasing impact on the world today, however the resources that are currently being used to teach STEM concepts and ideals are complex and difficult to understand, especially when the pandemic left engaged learning from a teacher or school out of question. During this time, we decided to use our passion for STEM to teach the community by simplifying challenging concepts in a simple, effective, and engaging manner. That’s when we created the STEM Time Podcast.
While building this podcast, we resonate strongly with the dream of girls aspiring to go into the STEM field, and have resolved to take action. By introducing STEM concepts to the community and inviting guest speakers of various backgrounds, we hope to encourage more people to explore, gain insight into the future of STEM, and potentially pursue a career in the STEM field. Although there is a lack of diversity in the workforce, we hope that we can welcome those of all genders, races, and ages to explore and overcome any barriers in STEM. Though this field is considered overwhelmingly male-dominated due to the wide gender inequality, we are a team of young women determined to change that.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Our brainstorming sessions were some of our most memorable meetings. Prior to recording podcast episodes, we would meet and plan ideas for our seasons’ theme and episodes. Initially, it was difficult to understand what our audience would enjoy and want to hear us talk about. So we tried out various themes: basic Computer Science concepts, historical figures in CS, and experiences directly coming from Computer Scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. We eventually discovered that our audience found valuable information when we brought on guest speakers to the show, because our audience is able to connect to the guest’s motivating experiences and receive inspirational advice on their journey in the STEM field. While we faced obstacles trying to find guest speakers because of packed schedules, we still wanted our audience to learn the first-hand experiences of individuals within the STEM fields. That’s why we persisted and continued to reach out to several guest speakers. Eventually, with our incredible dedication to outreach and desire to provide priceless experiences to our widespread audience, we were able to schedule episodes with amazing guest speakers. Some of our outstanding guests include Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, a distinguished CS professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, Matt McGuire, the CEO of SafeStamp, and Rahul Rana, the author of Making Moonshots.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We think it’s important to recognize the purpose behind our podcast and why we are different.We created a podcast during the pandemic to provide a medium for students around the world to engage themselves in STEM either through a quick and powerful lesson in CS, a debate discussion about a certain controversial technology topic, or an interview with an experienced entrepreneur. As the hosts of the STEM Time Podcast, we hope to continue spreading our passion for the STEM fields across the country by targeting all backgrounds and all audiences.
We are so thrilled to have gotten over 800 plays of our podcast episodes because we have been able to contribute to our community by impacting numerous people during the pandemic. We are also honored that we were able to talk with extremely distinguished individuals on our guest speaker series!. The discussions we had with our guests were extremely inspirational because they talked about their experiences, successes, and most importantly, gave valuable advice to our audience and us! Although several podcasts exist, STEM Time is truly unique because it provides a vocal platform for two young females, who are both aspiring Computer Scientists, to reach out to similarly fascinated individuals. We hope to continue inspiring future generations of females in STEM by empowering other females to join this fascinating field and take a small yet powerful step to reduce the existing gender gap in STEM fields.
Moreover, the three of us are lucky enough to grow up together in middle school, to present-day, taking advanced STEM courses at Plano high schools and collaborating on this personal project. In Plano, it is easy to lose your passion for school subjects, because of the rigorous workload and stiff competition, meaning that the time we spend on the STEM Time Podcast is a deeply appreciated time to hang out, while geeking about the subjects we love.
Can you talk about how you think about risk?
At first, we never even considered taking risks because we wanted to focus on what we knew the best, Computer Science. But, we realized that to be inclusive to all aspects of CS and that we would need to branch out. Although we both had experiences across the STEM field, we weren’t as confident and experienced across subjects other than CS concepts. However, we decided to take the risk of expanding from the essentials of Computer Science such as algorithms, abstractions, and data structures to other areas. That’s when we picked a unique yet unspoken topic to talk about, historical figures in CS. It’s not a common area of interest for many STEM enthusiasts since let’s be honest, most people in CS are only concerned with the technical background. However, we at STEM Time strongly believe that learning about the backstage of the technology we have today and the figures that contributed are just as important, and these legacies should be honored. Although we had some high hopes for the success of the new topic episodes, what we witnessed in the coming weeks was unbelievable.
Our audience enjoyed many of these episodes, especially those about revolutionary figures such as Claude Shannon, John von Neumann, and Alan Turing, all of which had immense success. To our disbelief, the episode about Claude Shannon was noticed and mentioned by the distinguished author Jimmy Soni, who created an award-winning biography of Claude Shannon! Amazing results like these taught us first-hand the importance of going out of our comfort zone. Although at first, we were quite comfortable with teaching CS concepts, we decided to try broadening our lessons to the origins of the field, ultimately allowing us to receive unimaginable audience engagement. Taking this risk at the very beginning of our journey gave us confidence about our abilities and decision making skills, which eventually encouraged us to discuss controversial technology ideals. By making decisions in an effort to benefit our audience and widen their perspectives on certain issues, we learned a lot as first-time hosts and really enjoyed the process!
Ultimately, we are not experts. We are still highschoolers, albeit passionate ones, and even while informing and teaching our audience, we are also constantly learning. Finally, the last thought that we want to leave you with is the notion that people easily forget: the smartest, most experienced STEM individuals have never, and will never, reach their peak of knowledge. The world only grows bigger, and so will we, taking STEM Time Podcast with us.
Contact Info:
- Email: stemtimepodcast@gmail.com
- Website: https://stemtimepodcast.wixsite.com/mysite-1
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stemtimepodcast/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STEMTimePodcast
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimeStem
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8AIuxPEQ89boGp4llYvTA
- Other: https://stemtimepodcast.carrd.co/#mentions
