BRIEF SUMMARY
STEMSuccess4Girls.org is a non-profit program founded in the fall of 2020 with a goal to instill passion in Math and Programming among girls, minorities and people of color as knowledge in these fields is crucial to success in today’s world. This program is geared towards middle school and high school students who need help in these areas (or) are interested in learning beyond their school level curriculum. This program is free of charge thereby allowing all girls and minorities including those who are financially underserved to participate without any constraints.
KAAVYA MAHENDRAN
Founder
Kaavya Mahendran is a senior in the Space and Engineering Academy at Merrill F. West High School and is very passionate about STEM. She has won numerous awards in several regional math and science competitions. She is a NorCal MATHCOUNTS State Qualifier and an AIME qualifier. She is also an alumni of the prestigious Math Prize for Girls competition. She has participated in VEX Robotics Competitions and is a part of the WHS Robotics club. Being fascinated with Computer Science, she has completed many projects in Java and Python. She has worked on research projects in machine learning at the Summer Research Academies at UC Santa Barbara and COSMOS at UC Davis. She also received a scholarship for a coding camp at UPenn. She regularly mentors her fellow students in math and is always on the lookout to learn new skills. Her enthusiasm for the STEM field and her passion to help other girls has inspired her to start this non-profit program.
MY VISION
I truly believe that my idea to conduct free interactive hands-on workshops in Math and Programming will motivate and encourage young girls, minorities and people of color to embrace STEM and succeed in these areas. I hope to do my part to give underserved communities an opportunity to explore and build confidence in their math, and technical abilities.
MY STORY
As a middle schooler, I participated in many math and science competitions and enrolled in high school math courses. However, I did not find very many girls as my peers. I observed that girls were a minority in STEM. When I mentored my fellow middle school students in math after school, I understood that those girls shied away from these areas because they had difficulty understanding several math concepts even though they were interested in learning. Being a student myself, I knew what I could do to bridge that gap. That thought eventually inspired me to start the non-profit program STEMSuccess4Girls. Through this program, I plan to provide several comprehensive and interactive Math/Programming workshop series focused on middle school/high school curriculum. I hope my non-profit program will help bring more girls into STEM and inspire them to participate in such activities.  I am glad to do my share to give back to the community and to build a better world.