Alter state, an international platform empowering women to engage in innovation development STEAM fields, introduces the 5-month Women Innovation Program 2021, which will take place online from June to the end of 2021. The mentorship and traineeship program is divided into several hands-on masterclasses and one main Innovation Sprint event. The Alter State has already launched the registration for the Women Innovation Program 2021 and invites future as well as experienced women innovators to apply.
"We believe that the co-creative process will give a unique opportunity for participating future and experienced women innovators to learn more about the tools and methods needed to implement ideas solving critical global problems as well as create a solid network of like-minded people," says Justina Klyvienė, the Co-founder at Alter State.
For two years in a row, the Alter State Women Innovation Program 2021 will be supported by a global innovation agency Future Leadership. It is also delightful to see our previous year's community partners continue supporting Alter State's mission to empower women to thrive in the tech world. This year, we are joined by new community partners such as TechBBQ, TEDxCopenhagen, Hack Your Future and many more. Stay tuned for more partners' announcements!
4 focus areas of the Alter State Women Innovation Sprint
The 5-month program is primarily focused, yet not limited to, empowering women to engage in innovation development, STEAM fields and become future creators, not only consumers. In this way, the Alter State aims to address and build the bridge between the existing gender gap. Specifically for this program, we focus on providing opportunities for international collaboration and knowledge sharing between participants while working on challenges addressing Sustainable Development Goals.
First of all, we determined Future of Energy as one of the key directions for our program ideas to help participants generate cleaner green energy solutions. The program also directs on the Future of Education since the need for edtech solutions is rapidly growing every day. Another main area is dedicated to the Future of Cities & Mobility. Knowing that the pandemic has demonstrated the concept of transforming cities, 15-minute cities are getting into the picture. With a diverse and aging society, mobility in cities is a crucial topic to be more inclusive for all groups. Our fourth direction is Future of Healthcare, engaging participants to develop health tech innovations. Healthcare solutions are also an actual hot topic in today's innovation world.
By focusing on women, we aim to tackle the gender inequality challenge, which is also one of the Sustainable Development Goals. The program trains women to innovate, collaborate, and provide them with the opportunity to widen their network for reaching like-minded people and needed partners. Alter State is an inclusive and safe environment for diverse groups to work together and get the fullest learning experience.
One Program - Several Masterclasses and One Innovation Sprint
Alter state aims to educate and encourage women to step into STEAM fields, where they could be of significant power in creating future society and business. This year, the Alter State Women Innovation Program is divided into three masterclasses and one Innovation Sprint to achieve the highest quality educational results. Three masterclasses will help participants reach a successful idea development process and sharpen needed skills such as problem-solving, users interview, and creative methods. During all of the sessions, participants will work under experienced mentors' guidance to achieve the highest possible results.
The very first Masterclass is dedicated to Problem-finding and takes place on June 9th. Participants will have an opportunity to identify a challenge that is needed to be solved, start building their teams and analyze the problem's scope to make a proper problem-solving strategy. On August 26th, Alter State will welcome tech-minded women to join the second Masterclass on Users Interview. Knowing that user interviews are an essential part of solution development, this session will help future and experienced women innovators learn how to empathize with users and their problems and try to look for the best solutions. On September 15th, participants will dive into new ways of creativity during the third Masterclass - Creativity Session. The goal of the sessions is to boost creativity and encourage looking for state-of-the-art solutions while solving complex challenges.
More masterclasses will be announced during autumn - stay tuned!
Over 200 Participants Joined the Alter State Women Innovation Sprint last year
In 2020, Alter State organized the first-ever international Nordic-Baltic Women Innovation Sprint, which took place online. 32 teams of more than 200 participants from 21 countries introduced their ideas in this innovation sprint. Several dozen international mentor-experts also accompanied the participants. 3 teams, Know Your Food (1st), BoardMeMore (2nd) and Algae Hive (3rd) were announced as winners by the international jury board.
Registration for the Alter State Women Innovation Program has started, future and experienced women innovators are welcome to apply now.
For more information contact Živilė Einikytė, the Co-founder at Alter State, via zivile@alterstate.org