STEMNET Award Nomination

When I started at Malvern Instruments in March 2015 I took over the co-ordination of our STEM Ambassadors, and I also signed up to be an Ambassador myself. STEM Ambassadors are volunteers who aim to promote STEM subjects to young people and encourage them to consider a career within those fields. The STEM Ambassador scheme is administered by STEMNET, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network, an organization that strives to inspire young people in STEM.

We have 23 active STEM Ambassadors here at Malvern Instruments and three new recruits who are currently in the process of signing up. The Ambassadors have been involved in activities ranging from attending careers fairs, performing experiments and demonstrations for children both in schools and at events, and organizing and judging competitions.

Our latest venture is writing and staging an interactive Christmas Lecture for local secondary school students, which has pushed our script-writing, acting and comedic skills to their limits but has been extremely fun and rewarding!

We were recently very excited to discover that we had been nominated for a National STEMNET award by the University of Worcester. The University is the ‘contract holder’ for the Worcestershire and Herefordshire region, supporting both STEM Ambassadors and schools within the region to get the best out of the scheme. We were nominated for the ‘Most Dedicated Employer Award’, and the feedback that we received from STEMNET was that they were “very impressed…[with our] efforts in promoting STEM activities.” Whilst we didn’t win, we feel very proud that all our hard work has been recognized, and will endeavor to continue to work with our local schools to support them with their STEM initiatives – starting with our Christmas Lecture in December! Wish us luck!