Inspiring a new generation during VHTO’s Girl’s Day 2022

Girl’s Day is an initiative from the VHTO expertise center on Gender Diversity in beta sciences, technology, and IT. During this day, girls all throughout the Netherlands are visiting companies in these fields. This way they can get familiar with the daily practice of technical work fields. By showing girls what it’s like to work with us, we are hoping to inspire a new generation to pursue a career in beta sciences, technology or IT! 

After a brief kick-off from the VHTO and a brief introduction by Daley Balgobind-Jager (Data Center Team Lead) and Evelien Smeenk (Development Team Lead), the girls were divided up into two seperate groups. One group would start with a full tour our Smartdc Rotterdam data center, while the other group started on a programming course led by Scarlett Samantha Verheul (Back-end Software Engineer).

During the tour, Daley explained to the girls what our data center consists of and what role each element plays in our digital society as a whole. This included showing the girls what a rack is, how our cooling systems work and how we ensure that we never run out of power.

Meanwhile, Scarlett put the other group to work by having them create their first program on Scratch. Many girls were having loads of fun programming in movements and sounds while learning how this can all be written in code.

After a brief lunch and some fun with balloons, we said our goodbyes to our lovely guests and handed them a couple of well-filled goodie bags filled with clothes and delicious snacks to take home with them.

All in all, if we are able to inspire just a couple of girls to consider moving into the tech world… we’ve accomplished our mission besides having a really enjoyable morning.

We hope to see you all back at our data center, we would welcome you with open arms!