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The networking will be organized through a number of the relevant associations in which the applicant has already been involved and to which she is going to connect during the project. The applicant is a Humboldtian, a coordinator for the western zone for the Cameroon Professional Research Oriented Women Network (CaPROWN), and president for the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World North West region (OWSD), Cameroon, so she has a rather wide network of excellent female scientists. Also, the applicant is the technical and logistic secretary of the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists (CAYS) and the Next Einstein Fellow Ambassador to Cameroon, hence she has all means to enlarge this community of women in STEM.
With the advent of COVID-19, we don’t know when the next pandemic will emerge and with the socio-political crisis in the Northwest, Southwest and Northern regions of Cameroon, it is important to develop a mentoring app where mentors and mentees will interact easily to promote female academic excellence in STEM in areas of excelling in their academics and research. This is the most innovative implementation of the project because even without internet connection the mentoring app will be able to work in rural areas. A feasibility study has already been done for the development of the mentoring app by a female engineering IT expert from the National Higher Polytechnic Institute of the University of Bamenda who has a startup incubation hub.
For strengthening the network, we plan to organise annual workshops in collaboration with CaPROWN, OWSD Cameroon Chapter, CAYS, Universities in Cameroon and Germany where Humboldtian who will act as mentors will be invited to attend the workshops. Some of the universities that will be involved in the workshop are: University of Bamenda, University of Buea, University of Dschang, University of Bertoua, University of Ngaoundere, University of Maroua, University of Bayreuth, University of Frankfurt and University of Kassel.
Monthly meetings will also be organized virtually through zoom where different webinar presentations will be done all aimed at promoting female academic excellence in STEM. Workshops and meetings with women in STEM will be organize on specific topics such as: how to promote gender equity in STEM, science communication and grant writing, scientific writing for publishing in high impact factor journals, promotion of mobility of females in STEM, role model projection in STEM, maintaining work-life balance and promoting leaders in STEM among others.
To support and strengthen collaboration and networking among females in STEM, we will also participate and propose special sessions at the major relevant conferences, such as: Cameroon Bioscience international annual conference, CAYS international biennial conference.
One important applications of this project is coaching and mentoring of postgraduate students and early career females in STEM, which will be supported in several ways:
There is still a wide gap between females and males in STEM fields at postgraduate and early career researchers’ level. This disparity is on the number of scholarships and fellowships won, their mobility, their publications in high impact journals, the grants won and their numbers in leadership positions. Therefore, the focus is placed on examining the real challenges which females in STEM need to overcome these male dominances in STEM. Role models who have overcome these challenges will continue to play an important part in moving in the right direction. 4 We will develop an electronic book (e-book) and podcast of role models of excellent females in STEM. Some of the role models will be Humboldtian nationally and internationally, it is hoped that reading about successful females in STEM will be particularly helpful for mentees to excel in STEM research and their careers. The selection of role models will be done in such a way to support maximal diversity, with regards to; (i) age, (ii) STEM field, (iii) country of origin, (iv) affiliation (v) academic and non-academic (industrial) occupation.
The e-book and podcast will be available to be used by coaching and mentoring programs that support the development of systematic approaches to increasing the representation and advancement of females in STEM. The experiences contained in the e-book and podcast will be useful to mentoring or advising program focusing on career, collaboration and networking opportunities, scholarships and grants opportunities, and mobility.
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