Join the 2023 Youth STEM Summit Design Team

Co-create our 2023 Youth STEM Summit as an empowering, impactful and inclusive event for youth globally 🌍

 

  • What's Involved

  • What You'll Gain

  • Application Process

Who We’re Looking For

The Youth STEM Summit Design Team is an incredible group of 9 young people from around the world. They’re making all of the key decisions about the 2023 Youth STEM Summit to design an impactful and inclusive global event that empowers youth in STEM to tackle the world’s biggest challenges.

We’re looking for a diverse team of young people (age 13-24), who each have different skills and strengths. Whether you’re good at planning and organising, can use social media like a pro, want a new opportunity to use your video editing skills, care about creating an inclusive and accessible event, or just want to share your ideas as part of a team, we’d love to receive your application!

This could be the perfect opportunity for you if you are…

  • ✅ Passionate about our mission of empowering youth to use STEM to tackle global challenges

  • ✅ Enthusiastic to learn and grow your skills - no previous experience organising events is needed to apply

  • ✅ Ready to challenge yourself and go out of your comfort zone - organising a global event is no small task, but you’ll have plenty of support from our team!

  • ✅ Based anywhere globally - our team works together 100% remotely

  • ✅ Aged 13-24

  • ✅ Able to commit to ~4-5 hours per week from June-October 2023, and committed to getting involved in all aspects of the Youth STEM Summit Design Team

  • “Being part of the Design Team, in 3 words, was surreal, surprising and interesting. Surreal because the entire experience was completely different to how I’d envisioned it (in a good way!), surprising because I kept unexpectedly learning new things and picking up skills without even realising it, and interesting because the whole experience was just so much fun and became something that I looked forward to working on every week.” – Safa Haroon, 16, Sri Lanka

  • “The Summit was an empowering experience for me. Being able to reach out to hundreds of students from all corners of the globe with a virtual event really empowered me to continue making a difference.” – Kavya Venkatesan, 13, USA

  • “After attending the Summit, I understood the scale of opportunities that is available globally and how to access them as well as how important it is for more young people to become invested in STEM…It was the first time I saw youth representation in STEM research.” – 2021 Youth STEM Summit Attendee

What’s Involved

 

The Design Team will work together to create the Youth STEM Summit as an impactful and inclusive 1-day virtual event that empowers youth globally with the skills, networks and tools they need to take action as STEM changemakers.

You’ll be making the decisions and involved in every step of the process of creating a global virtual event…

 

👋 Meet the Design Team

Get to know other members of the Design Team, learn about each other’s strengths, cultures & experiences and decide how you’ll work together.

💡 Design the Summit

Brainstorm, share your ideas and make all of the key decisions, from the schedule, to speakers, to promoting the event, to attendee engagement.

🔨 Build the Summit

Pick your best ideas and start taking action to build an awesome Summit - expect to learn lots of new skills along the way!

⚡️Youth STEM Summit

Welcome hundreds of youth from around the world to the Youth STEM Summit! There’s lots of roles to play on the day, from hosting, to social media coverage, to helping speakers and attendees.

🌍 Evaluate the Summit

Measure the Summit’s impact, evaluate what went well and what could be better, and reflect on (and celebrate!) your experience in the Design Team.

 

To get an even better idea of what’s involved, check out the recordings from our 2021 Youth STEM Summit, and 2021 Design Team members Poppy & Maha sharing their experiences.

 
 

What You’ll Gain

  • 🌍 Join a global community of youth changemakers, leaders, researchers & innovators

  • ⚙️ Gain experience of planning an event and develop new skills, including teamwork, communication, event management, leadership and project management

  • 🙌 Use the Youth STEM Summit Design Team to gain volunteering hours, or to count towards external awards (e.g. Duke of Edinburgh)

  • 📣 Additional opportunities to get involved in, like speaking at other events, sharing your voice on our (& our partners’) platforms, or interviewing awesome people making change through STEM

  • 👩‍🎓 It looks great on your CV/resume or university & college applications and you’ll also receive a personalised reference from our Founder & CEO

  • ⚡️ Most of all - make a real difference by being part of creating an impactful and inclusive Summit that empowers youth globally in STEM to tackle the world’s biggest challenges!

How to Apply

  • Once you’ve decided the Summit Design Team is the opportunity for you, and have thought about whether this is a commitment you’re able to make without compromising your wellbeing or education, it’s time to submit your application! Applications are submitted via a Google Form. In the application, you will be asked to provide some information about; yourself, what stage of your education/training you’re currently at, and the details of at least one person (up to 2 people) who can provide a reference.

    You will also be asked to answer 3 questions, which will be used to determine whether your application reaches the next stage of selection.

    These 3 questions can all be completed in a range of formats. You can type straight into the application form, record your answers by video/voice note, create a poster or write a song/poem (or something else!) to answer the questions. If you need to send us an attachment, you can either upload this to Google Drive (or a file sharing service) and send us the link, or email your responses to mhairi@youthstem2030.org. All parts of your application must be sent to us before the advertised deadline.

    The 3 questions you will be asked are…

    About You: Tell us about your skills, knowledge and experience. We don’t just want to know what you’ve done. We want to know how you did it and how that shows to us that you can do this role. Answers should be a maximum of 1500 characters.

    Why Us?: Tell us what has motivated you to apply to be part of the Youth STEM Summit Design Team. Answers should be a maximum of 1000 characters.

    Why You?: This is your chance to tell us what you can bring to the Design Team - tell us about you as a person and how that will make you suited to being part of the Design Team. Answers should be a maximum of 1000 characters.

    NB: There are no minimum requirements for response lengths for these questions, but a well thought through application will likely score higher.

  • After the advertised closing date, you will receive a confirmation email from us, telling you that your application has been received. In this email, we will advise you on when you should hear back from us, based on the number of applications we need to review. We care about every application we receive, so this allows our team to ensure time can be given to fully reviewing each application.

    All applications are anonymised before being given to our application reviewers, which minimises bias in our selection process and means you can be confident your application will be reviewed fairly.

    After we have completed an initial review of all applications, we’ll email you to let you know whether you have been shortlisted and therefore selected to progress to the next stage of applications (Step 3).

  • Our interviews are informal in nature and take place by video call (usually Google Meet). Our interviews give you the chance to get to know more about you and your motivation for joining the Youth STEM Summit Design Team. It also gives you the chance to meet several members of our team to ask any questions you have about the Youth STEM Summit or what it’s like to be part of the Design Team. We know interviews can be daunting (and this might even be your first interview!), but we’re not looking for who is the best at doing interviews - we just want to get to know you, your skills, and why you want to join the Design Team, so all you need to do is be yourself and do your best!

  • We know how much time you’ll have put into your application, so we’re committed to ensuring that all applicants are informed of the outcome of your application. Our team also works hard to ensure we provide feedback wherever possible to applicants who progress to Step 3.

    Unfortunately, as we often receive many applications, we can’t accept every application we receive. However, if you’ve previously been unsuccessful, we highly encourage you to work on your application and reapply for future opportunities - several members of our current team were initially unsuccessful but worked on their applications and made successful reapplications!

Accessibility & Inclusion

We’re committed to creating equal opportunities for all youth. If you need us to make adjustments to any stage of the application process so that it’s fully accessible to you, please email Mhairi McCann.

Apply Now!

Apply by Tuesday 30th May, 5pm BST (GMT+1)

Frequently Asked Questions

  • There’s no one thing that makes someone an ideal applicant - we’re looking for a range of Design Team members, who each have different backgrounds, skillsets, interests and levels of previous experience in organising events!

    There’s a few things every member of the Design Team has in common though…

    • Passion for our mission - to create an impactful and inclusive event that empowers youth globally as STEM changemakers!

    • Enthusiastic to learn and grow - your enthusiasm to get involved is much more important to us than your previous experience or qualifications

    • Able to commit to the project - both for their own development, and the team’s collective progress towards designing an awesome event!

    Our main advice when working on your application is simply to be yourself!

  • All youth, based anywhere globally who are aged 13-24 can apply to join the Youth STEM Summit Design Team. Fluency in English is not required (past Design Team members used it as an opportunity to further develop this!) but for this opportunity, you’ll need working proficiency in English and regular digital access to be able to participate fully.

  • No, and several previous members of the Design Team didn’t have any background in STEM before joining - we’re keen to welcome young people with all academic interests!

  • No - we expect that for most members of the Design Team, they’ll never have done something like this before!

  • The Youth STEM Summit Design Team works together digitally, using our online workspace Slack, and with regular video calls for interactive workshops and meet. Don’t worry if you’ve not used Slack before - we’ll cover this in your onboarding sessions!

  • Absolutely - we really encourage reapplications. Some of our current team and alumni weren’t offered a role with their initial application, but worked hard to reapply and made a successful reapplication. If you’re thinking about reapplying, we’d encourage that you spend time working on your application and take on all the feedback from your initial application.

  • Week to week, being part of the Design Team will take up around 4-5 hours each week. This includes time spent in virtual workshops and meetings, learning new skills, and putting your ideas into action!

    We can generally be very flexible about when in the week you volunteer, so it can fit round your other commitments.

    The Youth STEM Summit will take place in September 2021, therefore the months of August & September will be particularly busy for the Design Team.

  • Due to the nature of this opportunity, we’re looking for people who expect they’ll be able to commit to all stages of the Summit design, delivery and evaluation, from June 2023-October 2023.

    That said, we understand that your personal life, health and your studies will need to take priority, and there may be occasional weeks where you can’t commit to the Design Team - this is totally okay, and we would never ask a volunteer to prioritise Youth STEM 2030 over their health, family life or educational progress. In these situations, we just ask that you let us know, so that we know you’re alright, and to ensure we respect of your fellow Design Team members’ time.

  • Yes - previous Youth STEM Summit Design Team members will be doing takeovers of our Instagram and Twitter accounts, so you can find out about their experiences. Feel free to ask them any questions you have!

    If you miss these, or you’ve got a question that wasn’t answered, send us an email with your questions and a member of our team can get back to you to share their experiences.

  • We’re happy to hear from you! Please email your questions to our Founder & CEO, Mhairi McCann.