It was 13 years into her career in STEM when founder and CEO of Frisco-based Women Leading Technology Kelly Flowers discovered a statistic that she knew she could change. Only 23% of people in the architecture field are women, with only 1% being black women. Now, the program seeks to connect girls to the ever-growing industry.
WLT’s flagship program is its Architecture Challenge. The 12-week program, launched in 2023, ran earlier this year and saw girls from pre-kindergarten to high school age learn an array of skills essential to the field. Participants came from as far as Oklahoma for four hours each Saturday to put skills to practice, from sketching to public speaking, to financial estimation, as they took their projects from ideation to creation, culminating in building three playhouses in competition with one another.
“I want them to be able to walk away with confidence, knowing that no matter what they put their mind to, they can do it.” - Kelly says of the girls, who she says she loved to watch grow over the course of the program. “The beautiful thing about it is that by the end of the program,” she stops for a moment, and smiles, “not even the end, probably the middle part of the program, you see everybody light up and they create friendships.”
Bringing girls out of their shell is the main goal of the program, after all. For Flowers, the talent of these girls is a given. Women Leading Technology just hopes to break down the barriers they may see ahead of them in a STEM career and normalize seeing themselves and other girls as part of the next generation of builders.
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Right now, she says, the organization is looking for skilled, hands-on, people who can help assist the organization with construction programs like these, as well as creatives like designers, to help guide the creativity of the participants even more. Women Leading Technology is also in the process of hunting down a permanent location so that they can make the Architecture Challenge and other WLT STEAAM programs a regular habit.
“We’re still a baby organization.” She adds as our conversation comes to a close. Her excitement for the future is palpable. “We’re constantly growing.”
About Women Leading Technology
Women Leading Technology is a non-profit organization dedicated to bridging the diversity, equity and inclusion gap within the STEAAM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Architecture, and Mathematics). By providing opportunities for girls to pursue a career in these fields, and resources to prepare them, they hope to improve the gaps in these communities. Women Leading Technology is looking for new financial partners. To learn more about them, visit their website at womenleadingtechnology.org.
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