Community Spotlight Series: IGNITE Worldwide
July 27th, 2020
October 11, 2019 | Cathi Rodgveller (center) meets with visitors from 28 different countries during “Advancing Women in STEAM” IVLP
IGNITE Worldwide (Inspiring Girls Now In Technology Evolution) is a non-profit organization founded in 1999 in Seattle Public Schools, and now works with 60 school districts in Washington, California, and across the country. IGNITE Worldwide works directly with teachers in schools during the school day to provide programming that promotes STEM education and career advancement for girls and non-binary youth from historically marginalized communities. Through hands-on events that connect students with role models who live and work in their communities, students recognize new possibilities for their futures. Activities include presentations at schools, field trips to companies like Microsoft and Tesla, and mentorship opportunities with women in the tech field. In 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) presented IGNITE Worldwide with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). This award is the highest level of recognition an organization can receive for excellence in STEM programming. Most recently, in 2019, the U.S. Department of State recognized IGNITE Worldwide for over 14 years of outstanding contributions to the State Department's premier professional exchange program, the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).
As we commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the IVLP we are grateful for IGNITE Worldwide’s partnership with the World Affairs Council since 2006. Cathi Rodgveller (pictured), the founder of IGNITE Worldwide, has a vision to inspire girls to become financially independent by listening to women's stories. Cathi says that IGNITE Worldwide is “a way for girls to see that there are as many ways to be successful as there are women. What is important for girls to see is that women did not give up on their dreams. We cannot lose more talent every year.”
Cathi regularly meets with STEM and youth empowerment leaders who come to Seattle on IVLP programs such as "Advancing Women in STEAM" which brought together visitors from 28 different countries in October 2019. During these meetings, IVLP visitors learn about how IGNITE develops a pipeline of women leaders in STEM to serve as mentors and how their volunteer-driven model is implemented in schools in partnership with teachers. Cathi has shared the IGNITE Worldwide model and scalable curriculum to STEM and youth empowerment leaders from over 50 countries, including partnerships with 25 IVLP alumni, to implement in their own countries. The first international IGNITE chapter began in Ghana in 2007, joined by Nigeria in 2010. During my interview with Cathi Rodgveller, she enthusiastically shared stories of impact around the globe. “Because of the work with the World Affairs Council, IGNITE Worldwide has truly become worldwide,” she said.
IGNITE Worldwide in Nigeria
The impact of IGNITE Worldwide is best explained through the stories of international visitors who have utilized what they’ve learned from Cathi and IGNITE Worldwide to create change in their respective communities. In 2010, Abdulraheem Abdulhakeem of Nigeria visited Seattle for the "New Beginning: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education" IVLP and has since started several IGNITE chapters throughout Nigeria. Currently, IGNITE Nigeria operates in four states and has over 12 chapters, each empowering more than 30 girls. Abdulraheem shares his experience about starting IGNITE:
“Nigeria, my country, and particularly the Northern region where I come from, has a large percentage of female population which exists entirely outside any type of productive economic activity. This accounts for one of the reasons why I chose to do IGNITE programs - to serve girls and women in my communities with low socioeconomic resources.”
November 14, 2019 | IGNITE Worldwide Panel at Ummy Nusira Memorial Academy, Akerebiata-Ilorin, Nigeria
Abdulrahmeen fondly remembers how a student, Fridausi, started to attend extra computer skills training classes in addition to her full-time secondary studies to invest in her growing interest in STEM, thanks to one of IGNITE’s workshops that she attended in the northern Nigerian city of Katsina:
“I met Fridausi at the first inaugural IGNITE chapter, Mariamoh Ajiri Memorial International School, Katsina. The proprietor of the school and the school teachers with other female experts made the moment so memorable. Fridausi would always be at the IGNITE events and she was always eager to make presentations. Fridausi once said: ‘I am happy I found my future career in an IGNITE organized event.’ IGNITE functions show that girls can do better if they feel more secure, happy and inspired to work with the support of their teachers.”
Abdulraheem is grateful for Cathi Rodgveller’s mentorship in launching the chapter and is determined to bring more Nigerian women into the digital economy. He is inspired by Cathi’s “spirit of getting girls involved and creating the ladder that brings girls to a level playing field in order to transform the landscape of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)” and continues to follow her example in Nigeria.
IGNITE Worldwide in Poland
Another chapter of IGNITE was started in Poland last year in three schools. Tomasz Maciejko, a liaison who accompanied the IVLP group for a 2017 program on "Education and Activism for Young Women," initiated the program through his family foundation, the Maciejko Foundation.
December 13, 2019 | IGNITE Worldwide Event at Kazimierza Pułaskiego Primary School in Warka, Poland
While implementing the IGNITE curriculum in Poland, Tomasz faced many challenges, yet he and his team continue to find innovative ways to tackle them:
“We have encountered many challenges, among them: the resistance of school faculties, including some from our partners, like the Association of Teachers of Mathematics. They would accuse us of promoting ‘gender ideology.’ We are trying to overcome this ‘charge’ by explaining the benefits of IGNITE to the national economy at large and higher standards of teaching in schools. We are also creating a large internet platform devoted to supporting schools in their STEAM teaching activities. We want to create a ranking system of schools in Poland, assessing them by their STEAM activities. Our IGNITE program shall then become a part of that platform, but remain separate. Then everyone is involved in promoting STEAM.”
“Another challenge was to adopt IGNITE to Polish Schools. While in the U.S., girls are encouraged to choose science subjects, the curriculum in Poland is set in stone. Our solution was to go beyond creating personal connection between women leaders from technical fields and girls, and to extend those encounters into workshops; ranging from topics like: biology of funguses and its usefulness in medicine, optical and lens technologies in research, programming using apple computers, environmentally friendly urban planning and technical aspects of making a movie.”
Tomasz emphasized the impact of hands-on workshops on encouraging girls to be proactive in pursuing STEM. He recalls, “after a sustainability event with an urban planning expert, 7th graders from a school in Kaluszyn were so inspired that they marched into the Mayor’s office to propose changes to the space around their school and different usages of city parks. The Mayor was impressed and the changes were implemented.”
In persisting through the setbacks and continuing to invest in the long-term change, Tomasz has worked closely with Cathi Rodgveller:
“It’s difficult to measure the full impact of the program after such a short time, but these first meetings bring a promise of a much larger scale of success in changing how girls get new options in choosing their future careers in technology. This success came only after years of setbacks, building our organizational capacity, patience, perseverance and nurturing by Cathi Rodgveller.”
IGNITE Worldwide’s crucial work has continued during the pandemic. The nonprofit quickly pivoted to inspire girls during the school day in a virtual setting! A recent virtual event - “You don’t need to be perfect, just curious”- included a panel of six STEM professionals who shared tips for developing technical skills and personal stories of persevering through setbacks and career changes. Programming worldwide hasn't stopped either. In Kaluszyn, Poland, students learned how to make a movie from a cinematographer. As Tomasz explains, "the girls worked with a volunteer movie camera operator and editor during 12 workshops online during COVID-19. They made a movie, step by step, on their own, with the assistance of the volunteer. There are no words to describe how their personal confidence and cooperating skills developed during that time.”
June 8, 2020 | IGNITE students working on their cinematography project during Covid-19 in Kałuszyn, Poland
Tomasz powerfully summarizes the impact and possibility of IGNITE Worldwide:
“Cathi Rodgveller and IGNITE Worldwide support has been indispensable. We share this same philosophy of success. One has to have unshakable belief in the fundamental cause like helping young girls to make a choice in pursuing careers in technical fields during a time of their lives when they are vulnerable to the pressures from their social environment. Here in Seattle many years ago, I had noticed Cathi’s 'genius' in detecting that period in girls’ lives, as a teacher. I still think that her observations deserve more research. We also share with Cathi the philosophy of flexibility when it comes to the managing and adopting IGNITE. Such an approach is particularly fitting in adopting successful programs from one country to another in the age of globalization. Whatever the view on globalization in the business world, globalization in the social world, thanks to the internet and other new technologies, is here to stay permanently. We got nothing but support and encouragement from Cathi and her colleagues from IGNITE.”
There is a sense of urgency in Cathi’s work. Since its founding, IGNITE Worldwide has boosted female enrollment in computer science and engineering courses from less than 5 percent to more than 50 percent in the Seattle School District. IGNITE Worldwide’s strategic mentoring efforts have inspired girls to consider pathways that they otherwise would not. We are grateful for Cathi and the IGNITE Worldwide team for their partnership and for continuing to inspire women’s participation in STEM fields in over 25 countries around the world through IVLP participants. IGNITE Worldwide’s success shows that IVLP truly provides the opportunity for a single conversation to change lives globally.
For more information about IGNITE Worldwide and the work they are doing in the local community and around the world, please see the links below.
New to the Community Spotlight Series? Check out our previous Community Spotlights recognizing our amazing community partners and the lasting impact of exchanges!
By Amodini Khade, International Visitor Program Intern and recent graduate in International Studies from the University of Washington