On March 12, 2026, in São Paulo, the Minas em Tech Experience took place, a powerful gathering that brought together around 85 participants to experience, in practice, what it means to place girls at the center of innovation, technology, and the building of solutions for the world.
Photo bringing together more than 85 people, around 75 of them girls from public high schools, who took part in the Minas em Tech Experience.
A gathering of agency and leadership
Held during the week of International Women’s Day, the event was much more than a conference. It was a space for creation, exchange, and leadership. With a program that combined conversation circles, talks, and hands-on workshops, the experience showed that, when girls have access to opportunities in STEAM, they do not just take part. They lead, create, and transform.
Right from the opening, the audience was invited to reflect on the journeys of women in technology, broadening repertoires and references. Next, the conversation circle with students brought an essential element: hearing girls who are already developing projects, sharing their challenges, lessons, and achievements. This moment reinforced something central. Representation matters, and seeing other girls occupying these spaces makes the path more attainable.
But it was in the hands-on experiences that the power of the event gained even more strength.
“Blinking LED” workshop led by former students of the Minas em Tech project.
3D modeling and printing workshop, led by the former students of the Minas em Tech project!
Hands-on workshops
The participants were able to move among different simultaneous workshops, exploring everything from sustainable robotics, 3D modeling, and virtual reality to creative solutions such as smart drains, irrigation systems, and heating constructions. In each activity, the focus was not only on learning a technique. It was on experiencing the doing, the testing, the making mistakes, and the creating collectively.
This “hands-on” approach is one of the great distinguishing features of STEAM and also a fundamental strategy for engaging girls. Instead of merely consuming knowledge, they become producers of technology, developers of solutions, and protagonists of their own journeys.
Why does starting in high school matter?
Initiatives such as Minas em Tech show that planting this seed while still in high school is decisive. It is at this moment that many young women begin to define their professional paths. Historically, girls have been kept away from technology fields by a lack of access, encouragement, and representation.
When we create safe, inspiring, and hands-on spaces, we are able to break this cycle.
“Minas em Tech – prototyping the future” panel, a presentation of the projects prototyped in the Minas em Tech project in 2025. The panel was led by former students of the Minas em Tech project (2022, 2023, and 2025).
By offering concrete experiences, contact with women who already work in technology fields, and real opportunities for experimentation, we broaden horizons and strengthen these young women’s self-confidence to occupy places that, for a long time, were denied to them.
The fundamental role of supporters
Events such as the Minas em Tech Experience are only possible because there are organizations and companies that understand the importance of investing in gender equality in the world of work, as a practice.
Supporting initiatives that place girls at the center of innovation is a concrete way to transform the future. It is recognizing that diversity generates better solutions, more equitable, more creative, and more connected with reality.
More than sponsoring an event, these partners help build journeys. They contribute so that girls from public schools, peripheries, and different territories have access to opportunities that, often, would not be within their reach.
This commitment to the future starts now. And it starts early.
“Minas em Tech – prototyping the future” panel led by former students of the Minas em Tech project (2022, 2023, and 2025).
Building possible futures
The Minas em Tech Experience reinforces that, when girls have access, support, and opportunity, they respond with creativity, power, and innovation.
Hacking the future together is, above all, ensuring that this future is more diverse, fairer, and more inclusive.
And that is only possible when we keep investing, collectively, in initiatives that believe in the potential of girls from high school onward and that build, together with them, new paths into the world of work.