SWE and FIRST: A Strategic Alliance Promoting Robotics ― and Much More ― to Young Women

Pictured: The Pitt Pirates FIRST Team and SWENext Club visit the SWE booth at the Innovation Faire.

Since 2008, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has been a Strategic Alliance partner of FIRST, a nonprofit that offers team-based robotics programs for young people to prepare them for a future in STEM. The partnership advances our missions of building STEM identities among young people and promoting diversity and inclusivity in STEM fields.

In this conversation between Karen Horting, CEO and executive director of SWE, and Chris Moore, CEO of FIRST, you’ll learn more about the urgency of empowering girls and young women to persist in STEM.

In April 2024, FIRST hosted their annual robotics championship event in Houston with teams from around the world competing while also developing their creative problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills.

Each year, several SWENext teams advance to the FIRST world championship, and 2024 was no exception. With support from mentors, club counselors, parents, and adult advocates ― many of whom are SWE members ― SWENexters showed up with a commitment to teamwork, DEI&B, engineering excellence, and fun.

During an awards ceremony at the championship, a SWENexter from San Jose, Calif. and winner of the 2022-2023 FIRST Dean’s List Award spoke about her experience.

“After winning the award, I met two little girls that had attended my Be the Change First Time SWE Global Forum on promoting inclusivity and empowerment in their lives. They ran up to me, smiling and chanting, asking for a picture.

I had to look around and pinch myself to confirm that they actually wanted a picture with me. The girls had mentioned that they had been looking for me all day after hearing that I had won Dean’s List, rooting for me to win beforehand, and expressed that they wanted to grow up to be like me. I thought to myself, “Me? They want to grow up to be like me? They want to take a picture with me?”

As cliche as it sounds, my world genuinely stopped at that moment, and I could not sleep that night reflecting on my robotics journey and realizing how much of an impact I made through what I thought was an individual journey and now a role model to these young girls. It still shocks me, to be honest.”

— Priyanka K., SWENexter and 2022-2023 FIRST Dean’s List Winner (excerpt edited for length)

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