Lokvani wishes all its readers a very Happy 74th India's Independence Day!

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Jonna Gerken is an engineering wonder woman. She’s a fellow and past president of the Society of Women Engineers and a board member with the Girl Scouts of Connecticut. In her day job, Gerken is deputy global transitions manager at Pratt & Whitney, a division of Raytheon Technologies, where she’s worked for more than 20 years.

In this month’s Leader’s Edge, Gerken shares how the Girl Scouts partnered with SWE on new  badges to encourage ambitious leadership, the ways the Scouts are teaching girls and future engineers to “be prepared,” and innovating programs as families find the new normal.

Girl Scouts of the USA has shown girls the excitement of STEM for decades. How will these 24 new badges that include topics like automotive engineering and STEM career exploration add to what was already available?

The new badges and journeys are exciting because they show girls all the different ways that STEM impacts their lives. They are not just learning about an abstract concept but performing real-world experiments and activities that show how STEM is everywhere. From automotive, robotics and mechanical engineering to coding, cybersecurity and space science, it’s a wide variety of areas to explore. It is the missing piece for many girls in making the connection between STEM and innovation. In fact, many corporations have supported these new STEM badges to increase the pipeline of girls into careers that they may not have previously considered. For example, my employer, Raytheon Technologies, is the sponsor of the CyberChallenge program, which highlights the importance of cybersecurity, a fairly new career path with immense potential and very exciting opportunities.

https://theengineering100.com/girl-scouts/