PHASE 1

MISSION STATEMENT
Our mission is to educate and inspire the women of South Central Los Angeles to
become empowered leaders in our modern society by pursuing college and career in the stem
field.

PROJECT NEED:
There is currently a diversity problem in higher education and industry. The decline of
women represented in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math is cause for alarm
and will impact our future greatly. Women account for 24% of computing jobs today...
according to the report, Cracking the Gender Code. Part of the solution to increase diversity
and the representation of women is to transform and innovate K-12 education. To
successfully transformed K-12 education there needs to be a concerted effort to encourage
more female students to study science, technology, engineering, and math in college. At our
school site, female students have been the minority since the opening of the school in 2012.
Due to its name and lack of recruitment resources, each year The Critical Design and
Gaming school has an average of 30 new female students each year. In other worlds, the
ratio of female to male students at C:\DAGS is currently 1:4 at every grade level. Our data
mirrors that of industry and it is our hope and intention to change this statistic. By creating
engaging recruitment resources and hosting a recruitment fair, we hope to educate female
middle school students and their families about the benefits of enrolling in our program.

PROJECTED TIMELINE:
In January, we will work with Lure Films to create a recruitment video to inspire middle
school girls to get involved in STEAM education. We will also create flyers and update our social
media accounts so that we are prepared to make presentations at local middle schools in South
Central Los Angeles in February. At these presentations, we will show them the video as well as
invite them to a STEAM fair we will hold in March. The STEAM fair will be open to everyone in the
community and their families, but we will make an investment in recruiting middle school girls to
attend. The fair will host several stations to engage middle school students with all things
involving STEAM such as Scratch Animation, Paper Circuits, and Makey Makey. Our fair will also
have female programmers, designers, and engineers guest speaking or partnering with our team
at the various stations. Our website will have forms for registering to attend the free event as well
as forms for industry professionals to sign up to participate as mentors. In summary, the creation
of materials (flyers, website forms, and video) will take place in January and the recruitment of
students and professionals will occur in February. The event will take place in March. We will
collect data such as the number of attendees at the March Event. Will will also distribute a survey
to all participants at the end of the event. As an incentive for completing the survey, we will offer
Magic Castle passes to 5 winners.

ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES:
We hope to encourage more female students to enroll in our program at The Critical
Design and Gaming School. Currently only 25% of the student body is female and we hope that
the next cohort of student will have 10% more. We also hope to establish a long term culture of a
rigorous program that welcomes anyone, especially female students, at our school

DATA COLLECTION:
We will collect data on how many students we present to, how many people attend our
event, and how many female students fill out and interest to enroll card.