The Business Women’s Giving Circle (BWGC) brings together successful women who want to have an impact on the women and girls in their community. Launched in 2014 by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, the Business Women's Giving Circle supports programs and organizations that promote innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and inventive opportunities for girls and young women.
The Business Women’s Giving Circle awarded $45,000 in 2016 to five organizations providing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math), Leadership and Entrepreneurship programs to girls in Northern Virginia, making total awards granted to date $125,000.
Kashmir World Foundation is one of the five recipients of the BWGC grant for conducting the SuperHERo Drone Girls workshop at Glasgow Middle School for 15 girls building five quadcopter drones in teams of three students. The workshop will be held as an afterschool activity at Glasgow Middle School in Virginia.
Kashmir World Foundation (KwF) is a nonprofit organization that integrates art as a means of i
nnovation, science as a benchmark for invention, and technology as the result of creative solutions. Through global collaboration, these projects improve the lives of people and wildlife worldwide. KwF leads international projects in collaboration with scientists, engineers, researchers and students that integrate art, science and technology to protect endangered species using developing emerging technology solutions, like drones. Their projects range from protecting rhinos and elephants in Africa to sea turtles on nesting beaches and the most elusive snow leopards in the high altitude of the Himalayas. As part of their mission, they have taught over 300 young people to build and program drones to power these projects. However, research shows girls will become engaged in robotics if two conditions exist, if it’s done in collaboration which this program is all about and allows students to solve real world problems. During the workshops they observed the girls were more interested in how the drones can be used to study and protect animals. KwF will be partnering with Glasgow Middle School this year to launch the DaVinci Challenge: SuperHERO Drones Girls program.
DaVinci Challenge: SuperHERO Drone Girls program is a hands-on, innovative STEM drone workshop that empowers middle to high school girls with leadership and entrepreneurial skills including critical thinking and collaboration via design, fabrication and operation of a drone with a mission focus to develop solutions for real world challenges.
The DaVinci Challenge: SuperHERo Drone Girls program will help Glasgow Middle School reach their mission of adopting new interdisciplinary programs for students. Glasgow Middle School will provide their campus for the DaVinci Challenge workshop during the 2017 school year, and we will also provide any help with the selection process of their students for the workshop.
During this workshop, students will begin assembling their drone after learning about KwF wildlife conservation and counter-poaching drone projects. To help students learn flight from another perspective, the foundation educates them on the variation of flights using Flying Creatures. On Flight Day, students take flights with their creations and once they have completed the workshops, they receive their Drone Operator Certificate at the Awards Ceremony.
The benefits of STEM programs are priceless: teaching students about the wonders of science and motivating them to learn about their world is one of the best ways they can learn about themselves and develop their interests, leading to future careers in engineering, biology, chemistry, and hundreds of other fields.
Together our goal is to foster interest and excitement among our female students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.