(Editor’s note: AList is published by a.network.)
While advancements in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) diversity is growing, gender equality in the field is stagnant. Averaged across regions, women accounted for less than a third of those employed in scientific research and development across the world in 2015. Women make up half of the total US college-education workforce but account for only 28 percent of the science and engineering workforce.
To celebrate and amplify the voices that still need to be heard in STEM, Ayzenberg Group, a full-service advertising agency that is part of a.network, partnered with Spotify to launch Grooves for Good (G4G), a platform where engagement equals impact. That’s based on the acknowledgment that a better representation of women in STEM begins with education.
Helping launch the initiative, the first “Box Set” is a compilation of holiday playlists for every occasion of the season, including “martini & mistletoe,” “wrap music” and “crying in my eggnog.” G4G fuses creativity and technology for a collaboration that has the power to pay it forward. All season long, each time a user follows a playlist, it will trigger a donation to Girls Who Code.
“We partner with She Can STEM throughout the year as we share their passion for championing diversity in STEM professions. Girls Who Code is one of their organizations, and so in addition to raising awareness of current diversity gaps, we’re able to make a donation to sponsor participants of their Summer Immersion Program,” said Danielle Simon, VP, head of strategy and marketing science at Ayzenberg Group.
In August, Girls Who Code surveyed over 1,000 college-aged women within its network and found that nearly half have either had a negative experience applying for a job in tech or know a woman who has. In the US today, women account for less than 20 percent of all graduates with computer science degrees and less than 25 percent of the computing workforce. That’s why in September, Girls Who Code announced it has plans to expand to 10,000 clubs across the US, nearly doubling its existing clubs presence.
“When we reached out to Spotify to talk to them about setting up the platform, we learned that we were the first company or brand to make playlist engagement equal an action or donation. That’s when we realized that Grooves for Good had the potential to engage a much larger community and become a CSR fundraising platform,” Simon added.
Ayzenberg Group is treating the initial launch of G4G as a soft beta while they optimize the user experience, tweak how to best share playlists and provide the community turnkey ways to share. In parallel, Ayzenberg Group is reaching out to influencers, artists, brands and organizations with a shared passion for the mission.
