iWish is a national community committed to showcasing the power of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths to teenage girls. Only 25% of the current workforce within STEM industries is female. To date iWish has reached out to over 50,000 students and have further ambitious goals to continue to increase their student reach through their annual showcase events and their campus programmes with other higher education institutes such as DkIT, Trinity, UCD, UL, UCC, MTU to name but a few.

This was the second year DkIT partnered with the iWish organisation, and the Institute was absolutely thrilled when Sharon Lombard, Director of iWish, took to the stage in DkIT to introduce all things Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) to all of this year’s attending TY Students. The school’s participating on the day included St Vincents Dundalk, Breifne College Cavan and, Scoil Uí Mhuirí Dunleer. This year’s occasion was extra exciting as one of the TY Classes walked away with the top prize at the event which was a visit from Dr Niamh Shaw to their class which will happen in the next few weeks.

On the day of the campus event students got to experience interactive sessions with academics and DkIT students, completing Microbiology Labs, Health & Physical Activity Labs, Programming and Coding, Engineering activities, a tour of DkIT’s Film and Audio Studio’s all whilst getting a feel of what student life in DkIT could look like for them.

This event was the follow up to the annual “DkIT loves STEM” roadshow, where leading female academics from Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths visit local and regional schools to ignite female TY student’s passion for STEM subjects. The “DkIT loves STEM” initiative is evolving from strength to strength each year, Dr Orla Sherlock, one of the leads on this project was recently awarded her third  Society of Microbiology UK Outreach grant to further develop this event with the addition of “DkIT’s STEM in a Box” challenge where teams of girls will compete to showcase their STEM skills for use during school visits.

The “DkIT Loves STEM” team would also like to thank the following for their generous spot prizes, Dundalk Credit Union for the telescope, Lego and headphones prizes, Lavina McGahon from Thrive for Women for the Air pods, Niamh Shaw for her time in visiting the winning class and the School of Health and Science for their in workshop prizes.

For more information on “DkIT Loves STEM” visit the DkIT Health & Science Outreach  Portal:

 DkIT Health & Science Outreach Portal