Third Thursday Member Meeting
Over 40 attendees were welcomed at the meeting that DAW hosted jointly with the San Ramon and Livermore-Dublin-Pleasanton neighboring branches on April 17. It was great to see AAUW members from the other branches along with SR co-presidents Cindy Alpert and Judy Bracken, and LDP president Anita Massey.
Ogie Strogatz, DAW Program Co-Chair, opened with an overview of the extensive AAUW National Fund program that supports several types of grants, fellowships, and other action areas. She noted that 96% of the Fund assets are donor-restricted for programs like fellowships and grants, while 4% that’s in unrestricted assets are essential to support AAUW’s advocacy, public policy, communications, and select operations.
The evening’s speaker, Adamaka Ajaelo, is one of the first recipients of an AAUW Community Action grant which has helped her start and develop the Self-eSTEM organization. Her grant enabled her to build an early STEM immersion program for girls. We were happy to be able to engage her as our speaker through AAUW’s Fund speaker process.
Adamaka spoke enthusiastically about Self-eSTEM which serves to ignite pride, purpose, and possibility in underrepresented women.
It’s designed to help guide and sustain women in the “pipeline” for STEM education resulting in careers in STEM fields. It starts with early training and skill development for girls from ages 7 to 17 and continues with professional and leadership training for those who are 18 to 25. All the organization’s programs and services are provided free of cost to the participants.
A distinguishing feature of the Self-eSTEM program is that it is centered on the person involved and aims to take them through a continuum of early education into career and professional development. And it’s designed to be culturally appropriate for the students so they can connect and thrive with the process and in STEM fields. To illustrate how well the approach is working, Adamaka inspired us with the stories of three successful students.
An innovator showcase fundraising event for Self-eSTEM will be held on Oct 4 in Oakland hoping to help raise a target of $250,000 in 2025. Adamaka encouraged us to help fund the program by sharing information about their work and their need for monetary contributions and sponsors.
To see Ogie’s slides about the AAUW Fund – click here
To see Adamaka Ajaelo’s slide presentation – click here
To learn more about Self-eSTEM – click here.
About our speaker: Adamaka Ajaelo is an Oakland native, mathematician, and STEM trailblazer with an unshakeable passion for the social, emotional, and economic empowerment of young women of color. She is the founding Executive Director of Self-eSTEM, a non-profit organization with the mission to ignite pride, purpose, and possibility among girls by providing STEM training that strengthens digital, technical, and leadership skills, reinforcing their STEM identities. Since 2014, Self-eSTEM has unleashed the brilliance and self-esteem of 1,625+ girls through STEM. Celebrating 10 years of the organization’s impact, Adamaka is on a quest to ensure BIPOC women are recognized as top talent and innovators in STEM.
Adamaka pivoted out of tech from her role as a Director of Strategic Workforce Planning and Analytics at Visa, where she provided insights and recommendations influencing global workforce plans and talent development strategies. She has worked for over 17 years at large companies such as Kaiser Permanente, Cisco Systems, Workday, Meta (Facebook) and Adobe in the areas of finance, workforce planning and analytics and business continuity. She has managed a budget of $110M+, shaped a $5.0B global tech workforce through talent insights, and is an Angel Investor via Pipeline Investors.
As a visionary leader blending expertise in STEM education, strategic workforce planning, and people analytics to drive innovation and equity, Adamaka is passionate about using data-driven insights and inclusive practices to design solutions that uplift underrepresented groups in the workforce.
Adamaka received her BA in Mathematics from Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA, and her MBA in Finance and Leadership Management from Holy Names University in Oakland, CA. When she is not working, she enjoys attending Warriors basketball games, wine tasting, and traveling.