We Are Power Podcast
The We Are Power podcast is the podcast for your career and your life. A weekly podcast with listeners in over 60 countries worldwide where you'll hear personal life stories, top-notch industry advice, and key leadership insight from amazing role models. The podcast not only aids your personal and professional development but also delves deep into conversations around Gender Equality and Social Mobility. Each week the We Are Power Podcast will bring you a new interview from a leader within the 100,000-strong We Are Power community, hosted by Simone Roche MBE.
We Are Power Podcast
Creating Confident Role Models in STEM with Alex Knight
This week we are joined by Alex Knight, founder and CEO of STEMazing, about her mission to empower women in STEM and inspire the next generation.
Alex dives into the power of mentoring, smashing gender stereotypes, and why everyone, no matter their position, can be a role model.
And she reveals the book that reshaped her mindset on lifting others up while pursuing success.
Listen to learn:
- The power of STEM education and mentorship
- Why harmony is more important than balance
- Alex’s inspiration for starting STEMazing
- How even the smallest actions can create lasting, positive change
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Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power Northern Power Women podcast for your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello, hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast, the podcast where every week I get to talk, chat and swap top tips, advice, guidance from one of our brilliant role models across the we Are Power community. And at this moment, in this season season, we are chatting to all of our trophy holders, those amazing humans and individuals and teams that went away back in March from Manchester Central at the NPW, the Northern Power Women Awards 2024, with a beautiful trophy. And this week I am delighted to be chatting to the wonderful multi-nominee haven't you multi-nominee over the years? Alex Knight, who is the founder and CEO of Stemazing and her Stemazing green t-shirt, which is literally your brand everywhere I see. Alex, welcome to the program, thank you so much, Simone.
Speaker 2:lovely to be here and thank you so much for everything you do, because clearly we are huge fans of we Are Power and it's been amazing to be nominated multiple times and to actually win an award in the recent ceremony was honestly as you could tell from my reaction quite unexpected and pretty much like one of the top highlights of my life.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Now where actually? Where is the trophy?
Speaker 2:Where is your commended micro-organ Organization trophy? The trophy is in my office and right in, basically in view of my desk where I sit, which is not where I'm sitting right now, because we're having work done in the house, so I've tried to find a quiet corner, whereas my office is right next to the work being done, so I didn't want drilling in the background.
Speaker 2:So it's not in this room with me, but it's in my office downstairs, also a quiet room in the home when it's school holidays as well is probably also ambitious right absolutely yeah, and the kids have been up since, I don't know, half past six this morning, um, full on full energy, and so, yeah, the the usual juggle, or harmony as you put it is, is what we're trying to, yeah it's definitely a new word I've tried to embrace.
Speaker 1:I think we talk a lot about juggle and balance, don't we? And I think I adopted it from somebody recently and I thought, harmony, I like that, let's try that one Now. After the awards. We did our winner's catch up in the few days after the awards and the three words that you used to describe how you were feeling were and actually a little bit more than three words, but you know it's artistic license Over the moon, overwhelmed brackets in a good way, and buzzing. How do you feel now?
Speaker 2:it was several months on, yeah, I think it's still similar, like I think that buzz, that vibe, just continues on because you create such an incredible community with the whatsapp groups well, that you don't feel like it stops at the end of the award ceremony. It's just grows and continues on. So, yeah, it's still been an amazing buzz, I would say, and gives you that additional momentum, like it can be really hard and sometimes lonely, running like a small business I work remotely all the time so to feel like you're part of something bigger, with lots of change makers who give you their energy and positivity as well. Honestly, it makes such a difference.
Speaker 1:And you have been shortlisted over the past few years and you just said it was like a moment of your life to win the show. What would you say for anyone who's unsure right now about nominating someone I can't win? It's a really big event. I've got no chance. What would you say?
Speaker 2:it's really not about whether you win or don't win. Like I know, it can feel overwhelming in the competition because the number of people that get nominated and the incredible caliber of the finalists. However, I've been in that position where I've been nominated. I've gone to the event, I've been a finalist. I didn't win and, honestly, it doesn't matter. You are part of history in the making when you're at one of these events and you meet incredible people and it's an incredible buzz and incredible achievement just to be there. So don't put too much pressure on yourself. Just go for it. Have confidence and just feel like you are part of something. Even by nominating yourself or somebody else nominating you, you're part of an incredible thing. Whether you win or not, it is not actually, in my opinion, the ultimate goal. It's about being part of this thing, which is incredible.
Speaker 1:I love that Part of history in the making.
Speaker 2:Tell us what was your inspiration and your vision for founding STEMazing as a woman in STEM myself as an engineer, I felt like I was always missing that feeling of community and that feeling of being just not being the one, the only one in the room all the time.
Speaker 2:And so, as much as I loved the role I had as an engineer and the projects I was working on, I always felt like where I can really make a big difference is by being part of this diversity and inclusion mission to bring more diversity into our engineering space, and I've always loved working with young children and doing STEM outreach with them. So I combined those two things to create STEMazing where I support and empower and equip other women in STEM to be more confident, visible role models and link them into primary schools that have a high percentage of kids on free school meals and show them the possibilities of a career in STEM for them, with smashing gender stereotypes in the process. So that was where my initial aim came from. It was just like my own experience, combined with what I love doing and where I feel I've got natural strengths and sort of just finding that sweet spot where they all overlap and you talk about that visibility of role models and we've talked back about the awards and being in that room of amazing role models.
Speaker 1:So why are role models so?
Speaker 2:important.
Speaker 2:Well, the phrase you can't be what you can't see although a lot of people don't like that phrase, it is true.
Speaker 2:You can be what you can't see, because clearly we have the firsts in everything, but it is so much harder and if you're battling other aspects of, say, diversity, characteristics that make life harder anyway like being in an ethnic minority, being in a socioeconomic low region of the country, like that are additional barriers that is just so much harder. That's why I think having visible role models it just removes one of those barriers, so that it makes it that bit easier for people who are not your stereotypical kind of, say, engineer to make it anyway. And so role models not only bring that motivation and that inspiration, but they also show you just what is possible. And this is why I think accessible, relatable role models are so important. So you don't necessarily see them up on a pedestal. You think, oh, I can connect with that person, I can relate to them, they're like me in so many ways. Therefore I can do what they are doing. That, to me, is the power of like, everyday role models.
Speaker 1:And I totally buy into it. It's the relatability, isn't it? It's almost. Sometimes I think we all have a job to do to coax other people to believe that they're a role model. You know, oh, I'm not at the top, or, like you say, I'm not on that pedestal or I'm not that, and you're like, actually you are a role model and we have to embrace that responsibility about being role models, don't we For sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally. I think everybody is a role model, whether they like it or not, and actually so to accept that responsibility and what comes with that, which is a position of influence and power. Therefore, you realize you do have agency. You can make positive change. So, yeah, it's kind of, I feel like my mission like similar to yours, to help people recognize they already are role models. The important thing is what they do with that platform and that nobody is too small or insignificant to make a difference. We all have power and agency. The important thing is like how we use that and that can be in a small way in our local community, but that in itself will create ripples. You don't have to be on a big, global stage to make a difference 100%, and it is.
Speaker 1:I always think it's the sum of all those parts that make this impact. Isn't it that make you know? And there's a big target, isn't it to achieve? 24% of the science, technology, engineering and maths workforce are women, only 24%. How can we accelerate that into a more palatable number?
Speaker 2:It's a lot of things and definitely the piece about attracting more diversity into our sector is huge, because we know we're just not even, we're not even like connecting with half the population.
Speaker 2:Most girls just don't see themselves in roles like that.
Speaker 2:However, we then also have a huge responsibility in the workplace to keep that talent, that diverse talent that we have attracted in and I do think it's a bit chicken and egg like we can't keep attracting more in if we're not doing more to retain and create inclusive cultures for diverse people within our STEM industries and we know, for example, in engineering.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the number of women in engineering has slightly dropped this year and although it's only a small kind of maybe statistically insignificant drop, it's still a minor reduction nonetheless, and we know it's a specific demographic of kind of women who are in that kind of coming up to middle management, maybe also becoming parents, and that that juggle or harmony that we talked about at the beginning is so difficult. We need to provide the cultures that allow women to thrive so that they can be the role models as well to young women and young girls coming in, so that they can be the role models as well to young women and young girls coming in. So it's a whole. It's a complex piece, but everyone has a role to play in helping to drive that number up.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. There's no one size sort of fits all model and there's no one straight path to it. And I think one of the things that I know you're massively passionate about as a wee is mentoring, and that's something that sort of you're really, you know, sort of you set up and started mentoring and you train us up to be mentors. Um, and we, we learn so much by giving and gaining back, don't we, from those mentor relationships?
Speaker 2:totally, yeah, I always feel like my mentees are my greatest teachers and I am there to try and really let them see how great they are and work out for themselves how to reach their goals, but providing a bit of direction or opening some doors maybe, but ultimately it is a two-way relationship and we totally learn from each other and I like one of the amazing things about being a finalist from we Are Power Awards is that you get a mentor, and I love having like so I've been lucky to have it twice and have mentors that have really helped me so much off the back of being in your world and, honestly, like that is one of the incredible incentives for just being a part of this, because you get connected into these incredible people who can help you with that next step in your career, in your life, and it's just invaluable.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love to hear that we always talk about the awards not being about one night. That's why we have the WhatsApp groups, that's why we have that and you're trying to create different interactions for different individuals because, again, everyone's sort of different, everyone's got different sort of um engagement levels, if you like, and everyone's got only so much capacity. So we we built that in as well because we want to sort of keep this going and have such positive conversations as we have today. So, talking back around stemazing and STEMazing the activities that you do around primary school children, we know that gender stereotypes are formed at that early age, aren't they? Five, six and seven? And this has been your real drive, isn't it? Around the activities you do around primary school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we need to reach kids young, to sow the seeds of STEM in their mind. We know that about connecting what they learn in, say, maths and science, to making a difference in the real world through careers in STEM. And it's really important, I think, that even young children can connect what they're learning to careers and making a difference in the real world and by seeing, actually like, by doing it themselves, with the experiments that we run in STEMazing, where every single child does their own experiment. That is, looking at different concepts of science and engineering but, importantly, connecting it to and this is why we learn this so that we can do this in the real world. And this is so now you go out in the world, look around you.
Speaker 2:Even simple things like shapes in infrastructure, in design. Different shapes have different properties. Shapes is part of maths. But unless you kind of appreciate that, you then realize, oh okay, so that's why we see, you know, connected triangles in bridges or cylinders holding up wind turbines. It all is there for a reason and we want to help children appreciate that and realize that they can be a part of that future. They can literally design their future and the future of the world through skills that we learn in STEM.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a real part to play because you're giving the. Why isn't it? Why does that look like that? Why is that bit like that? But I think there's a real. One of the real opportunities as well is how our youngins can go back and educate and inform parents too and take especially if, if you know sort of the, the background around, sort of you know of the kids is not from that background of engineering or or stem or whatever. So I think it's a great opportunity to sort of inform and sort of put a different spin on it, isn't it? Rather than just say stem, stem, stem. It's like actually because of that, more more dad or whoever exactly.
Speaker 2:Because we know parents are key influencers.
Speaker 2:But if the parents have no awareness or understanding of what the stem opportunities are, then how can they be influencers on their children?
Speaker 2:So therefore, we want to flip it and the children be influencers on the parents, so the parents can then open their eyes and say, actually, yeah, maybe I would support you to do that kind of career.
Speaker 2:And it's about, yeah, trying to find a way of helping the children to take that message home and continue the conversation at home. And we do that with our STEM experiments, because the children all make something in the classroom that they then take home to show their parents. It's all made with simple household resources so they can continue experimenting, iterating their design, innovating at home with their siblings, with their family, with their carers, and that helps bring that STEM conversation to the household, to home, to families. But also we have asked amazing certificates that every child gets after every single workshop and that reinforces the key stem messages and kind of is something that we've kind of aimed a bit at parents as well as children, so the parents find it interesting and useful to look at. So you're right that that message about getting the stem conversation to continue at home is so important, and I think especially for things like social mobility, where you know the parents don't see the opportunities for their children, so we have to help them as well.
Speaker 1:For sure. So how can people get involved if they're listening now thinking that sounds really good. I really want to be part, I want to play my small part.
Speaker 2:So we really good. I really want to be part. I want to play my small part. So we've always been focused on women in STEM and we have our now award-winning Inspiration Academy program, which is really about helping women to become more confident, visible role models. So we have this three-month program and that's open to any women in STEM to apply to be part of that, where we connect them into primary schools after training them and they deliver our Stamazing Kids sessions. But we've also recently opened our Stamazing community, which is for all genders, so it's not just women who can get involved with Stamazing, all genders can get involved with Stamazing and in a maybe sort of lighter touch not such a structured program, but still access our empowerment, our community live events and our amazing kids tutorials so that they can be the role models our young people need to see. That is very exciting.
Speaker 1:And what is next? What is on the horizon? Because it always strikes me of someone with so much energy and so much passion and purpose there's something, obviously somewhere, yeah well, we want to grow in a more like regional way so that we have that local connection as well.
Speaker 2:So we've grown historically, like with me running it and being having a national and international reach, with women all over the place joining our programs online.
Speaker 2:But we recognize when we've done some regional sort of pilots that in-person connection is also really important. So we want to try and grow our regional bases or hubs in Stamazing where we can have Stamazing leads who connect with on that in-person level with the schools and the role models as well. And then, like you mentioned, mentoring we want to bring mentoring into our program so that our graduates of our previous Inspiration Academy can help mentor the newbies and support them through the process so that our graduates are still really integrated and involved. And it helps that sort of networking and community aspect across all of our different programs because then it creates this seamless sort of continuum rather than being sort of pockets of activity that we run a couple of times a year. So, yeah, we're trying to evolve to really grow into that like even more supportive and integrated and holistic view of a community that empowers and everyone really and all genders and that brings that relatability that we talked about earlier, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:If you're taking your graduates to kind of pass it forward, it creates that you say holistic, that secular, secular sort of you know. It becomes that cascading, isn't it form of mentorship? Now, every week on this winners and commended and trophy holder season, we are passing on a question from our previous guests. I've got a question from Alison Dunn, our leveling up leader. Her question is what is the book that resonated with you most and how have you taken something from that book into your life? Toughie, I think.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, tougher, because there's so many books I think I would say. But, um, I would say if I had to, on the spot, think of a book. It was a one that I read years ago, actually, way before I even started Stamazing, and it's an old book and it's called I'm Okay, you're Okay, and it's one of those classic books that helps you really put yourself in a position where you want to be an agent of positive change whilst lifting everyone up around you. Because I think, I have to say, as a younger adult, I did have this feeling of competition, like I'm in it to try and be the best I can be, and that doesn't necessarily mean helping others along the way, and I'm being totally honest here that there's a element of like. You feel like you have to look for ways that you can elevate yourself and not always thinking how can I elevate others at the same time.
Speaker 2:But that book I'm okay, you're okay really helped me feel like the place I want to get to is where I feel empowered and I believe everyone else is empowered and the best they can be at the same time, and that is the utopia, where I feel like we're all on a level, we're all helping each other and I want everyone to be in a space of health and happiness and freedom and love and joy, and it really clicked for me that that is the path to success and that is what success means to me. It's not about personal success, it's about really community and globally feeling like we're all in this together. So, yeah, I'd highly recommend it if anyone hasn't read it. It's an old book now and it doesn't get a lot of PR these days, but it's a, it's a classic and it's a great one well, we've just just shouted it out.
Speaker 1:So is it one for your summer read? I think one for your summer read. Oh um, alex, thank you so much for joining us. I love your energy. I love everything that you were doing. It so resonates. I'm so glad that you took home a trophy this year as well, and thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Thanks simone, love you as always. Thanks for everything you do.
Speaker 1:Take care oh and thanks all of you for listening. Thank you for your feedback. Thank you for your reviews. Please do stay connected. On all of our socials we are power and facebook and linkedin, we are power underscore net on TikTok, instagram, on Twitter Please get those nominations in. We are powernet, free to enter so many different categories to be able to unearth role models from all walks of life with all stories. Everyone is a role model to someone. Alex, thank you so much for joining us. Thank all of you for listening. My name is Simone. This is the we Are Power podcast and what goes on media production.
