Empowering Girls in STEM Around the World

"What impacted me the most was learning how to code and turning a project into something real."

For Marianna Victória, a high school student in São Paulo, Brazil, that moment opened the door to possibility.

Marianna was one of 84 young people selected for the Let's Learn STEAM – Lenovo 2025 project, led by United Way Brazil. Half of the participants were girls, a deliberate choice as women make up just 35 percent of STEM graduates worldwide, according to UNESCO. For Marianna, the program offered something many girls never receive: encouragement from leaders in STEM fields and opportunities to learn and create STEM solutions.

As the project unfolded, the challenge deepened. A hackathon that began with dozens of participants narrowed to just three who stayed through mounting pressure and deadlines. Marianna was one of them. Together, her team transformed long hours of learning, trial, and collaboration into the Smart Library prototype, a project designed to introduce technological experiences within school library settings, one of three winning projects.

"Along the way, we learned programming, collaboration, and how to lead ourselves through difficulty and pressure," Marianna says. 

The experience moved her beyond theory and into practice, where ideas became impact.

That journey is replicated across the United Way network. In Spain, Carla and Marian followed a similar path through the Top Scientists 2025 competition, supported by United Way Spain in partnership with the 3M Foundation. What began as a classroom idea became a real-world project with social and environmental impact, earning national recognition. "This entire project has felt like living a dream that began as just an idea," they shared, reflecting on a year that reshaped what they believed was possible through effort, collaboration, and passion.

Together, these experiences point to a shared focus. United Way is investing in programs that do more than just expose girls to STEAM learning; they equip them to learn, build, and lead with confidence.