Offering young people career guidance and showing them a variety of prospects at an early stage is an essential task during their school education. In order to exploit personal potential, it makes sense to think outside the box of traditional professions and try something new. Girls’Day has exactly this goal. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, 5,000 companies across Germany took part in Girls’Day this year, giving 65,000 young girls the opportunity to get a taste of otherwise male-dominated professions.
We at FASTEC also wanted to provide exciting insights into our company and inspire twelve girls from Friedrich-Spee-Gesamtschule to take an interest in information technology professions. To make this possible on site despite the pandemic, we developed a hygiene concept for Girls’ Day in compliance with the current regulations, which ensured the safety of the girls and our colleagues.
Thematically, the day at FASTEC was divided into two core tasks for the girls.
The first task was based on the topic of software ergonomics. Using the Adobe XD software, the task was to create a landing page for the Apple Airtag product. The focus here was on the creativity of software development. The second task was the challenge of using an Ozobot to guide a token along various paths in a labyrinth to its destination. In a visual programming environment called ozoBlockly, the participants were able to enter the commands for the small robot and transmit them via light signals. This allowed them to try out their program directly on a prefabricated maze.
At the end of the day, there was a question and answer session. Topics relating to professions, IT in general and FASTEC as a company were discussed. This was followed by a feedback session. The student Marie summarized: “I felt very comfortable. I particularly liked the task with the Ozobot because we had to work out how to do it and were able to come up with our own solutions later. I also enjoyed the task of designing the website! It was almost as if we were doing real work. We were all very happy about the breakfast. It was a special experience in addition to everyday school life – I would recommend taking part in Girls’ Day at FASTEC.”
It wasn’t just a successful day for the girls, as our colleague Aline also gave her feedback: “I really enjoyed the day, above all I got to meet a lot of very open-minded and incredibly creative girls who weren’t afraid to ask questions and just do things. I hope that in a few years’ time I might be able to welcome one or more girls back to FASTEC as trainees or employees.”
As a parting gift, the girls received a certificate of participation and a goody bag as a memento of FASTEC and the successful Girls’ Day.
We would like to thank the participants for their commitment and wish them good luck for their future careers!
