My name is Anne-Marie Imaffodon, and I wear a number of different hats. I'm the author of She's in Control.

Now is Dr Anne-Marie Imaffodon, who's CEO and co-founder of the Stemet, which aims to inspire and promote the next generation of young women in science, technology, engineering, and maths.

And I do got some of other different bits and pieces. The things that land in my inbox, people are like, Hey, there's a show called Countdown. Have you heard of it? Do you want to do numbers for a bit?

It's Dr Anne-Marie Imaffodon. Very nice to have you hear it? Sure. Dr Anne-Marie is a computing and mathematics genius who speaks five languages. She got two GCSEs while still at primary school and is the President of the British Science Association.

If it looks like there's a plan, then that's very interesting for me to learn.

Are you special?

I don't think so. I think, or I'll put it this way, I think I think everyone's special. I just don't think most folks have figured out what that special is. There's an element of the way I've been able to take opportunities and not be afraid to try things and fail and succeed that maybe is special. There are a lot of things I can't A lot of things I don't remember. Yeah, we've always only been East, never lived anywhere else. Our whole lives are centered around here. I just love the difference. There's just everybody is here and they're co-existing and enjoying life together. Best place on Earth. East London. I am the eldest. Eldest of five. Sadly. You don't choose it, do you?

Because if you're first, you're the guinea pig. I have many regrets for that. About 62 different regrets.

So school was frustrating in part because of the repetition. Education is repetitive because that's how most folks learn. And so it was frustrating. We did this last year, and I remember us doing it last year. It really made sense last year so we can do something else. Then it just turned into, I'm just going to sit and talk to Tolu. I'm just going to sit and talk to Michael. I'm going to sit and talk to Rebecca.

I realized that, oh, she finishes her work early, and then she gets into mischief. So we have to make sure that we see how we can get rid of that mysterious behaviors. Every child is gifted and talented in ways and manners that I may not know, you may not know. So let's find out the talent of each child Outside, it was exploration.

It was, Okay, let me give... Let's try this. There's a book that we found that's done this, or your cousin's doing such and such a subject. Let's try that. At one point, I did Greek lessons, did Chinese lessons, like Mandarin. There were just a lot of other things that were free and available outside. And then also I like devices. We had a VCR player at home. We had lots of different things at home, and I was incredibly curious. That curiosity and I'm going to understand how that works. Okay, cool. If that works that way, what do we do with that? Okay. So I was about four when I got to the part of the VCR player.

The thing was completely... No matter what button I pressed, it gave me something totally different.

How does it work? Why does it always work? How did it know? And looking inside the cassette tape, you don't find what you're looking for. So yeah, I'm going to go and have a look inside the VCR player and maybe try and lift it up and use other implements like Toy Soldiers.

Completely ruined my VHS. Very expensive. About two months wages. Have you paid me back? Sorry, dad.

I have. Yeah, definitely. I've definitely paid you back. So we used to go to the computer market. So it was like second-hand stuff. It was cheaper, a lot cheaper. Yeah, so a lot cheaper. So buying floppy disks or buying motherboards. So then you get those bits and pieces and then try and think and put them together and build a whole computer.

Yeah, so we should know how much a bit of a computer. Was it nine or 10?

I gave it a When I graduated from Oxford, the plan was to go to the city and work. Ended up working on the tech for the people that were in tech. I mean, like I said, now, but I'd sit on the computer all day for free. You didn't really need to pay me to do that. But I enjoyed it because I've always been very curious and always been like, We can use technology to solve problems. And this was a ready supply of problems that needed to be solved with technology. It's because gender-diverse teams make better decisions. I ended up being invited to speak at a conference with three and a half thousand technical women in one space. And as someone that's always been in technical spaces, but never been in female majority technical spaces, it was quite alarming for me. Quite life-affirming as well that, Wow, I didn't even know I was in this minority. It's almost like X-Men. You're like, You have powers, too. And so ended up there and had a bit of a road to Damascus moment of, No, Amri, you really are the only girl in a lot of these spaces, and that's not okay.

And so I ended up starting Stamets as a result of being at that conference. The dream My dream is to work in the space sector. I am a first year, aerospace undergraduate. Biochemistry and science to technology. Technology and financial markets. It can be so isolating. You can feel so alone that actually just a little bit of effort to get folks together pays so many dividends for what they do next, for how they see themselves, the fact that they're not the only girl in the entire world that's ever done this and will ever do it. It's a frustration I do end up having with events that I'm invited to these days that are mannals, where they've not been imaginative or thought at all about who they have contributing to the conversation. And there was an email I got literally last week that had the same thing. I had to write back and be like, Is it me or do you not have a single woman here on this email? We're talking about society in the future, and I'd have thought that maybe we might have a couple of women in society in the future, as we might want a little bit of their experiences now to be reflected in what we're discussing.

Maybe just me. I don't know. In the STEM curriculum at GCSE and at A-Level, there is a lot of male names codified in. So if we say, I don't know, Newton's Laws of Motion, that means Isaac Newton is inside the curriculum, is something that everyone has to learn about. And so we're wanting to counter the balance. So for every time there's a male name, you have a female or otherwise name. So whether it's GPS and Dr. Gladys West, who did the maths on the geostatic satellites, whether it's Hedy Lamar, who was a Hollywood actress and was an incredibly keen physicist and ended up co-inventing WiFi or Bluetooth. Katherine Johnson, who was a mathematician in 1960s at NASA, did the maths by hand on early space travel, space flights. Like a Rosalind Franklin, the women of Bletchy Park There's so many for every name that we have already in the curriculum. Let's just put a little bit of that hirshtry in alongside it. And it frustrates me that we still have a national curriculum, at least in this country, that doesn't mention the names of any of these women. And we have the The audacity to think that it's these dead white dudes with beards are the only people that have done anything of note.

The audacity. How dare we? At the moment, we're in a technology where the entry point to what folks are calling the fourth industrial revolution. So if you line up eight people, five of them are online or have a mobile device, which speaks a lot to the size and the scale of what we're talking about, but the fact that it's not all-inclusive. There are many reasons why we're not all fluent in tech. There's something of that definition of fluency. Being able to understand is different to being able to speak. It's different to being able to write. It used to be reading, writing, and arithmetic, and now it's reading, writing, arithmetic, and redigital. In access, there's access to opportunities, but there's also norms, stereotypes. The one that's the most frustrating is that barrier of who is able and who is capable. It's built on a lot of very intentional social engineering centuries, if not decades back, where if you're a young woman, for example, in a classroom, if it's a technical, if it's physics, if it's mathematical, if it's engineering-related, the idea that that's something you might get just by virtue of who you are and the fact that it's really hard for you to actually see that any other woman has ever done maths or physics, engineering or technology before you, all of that then gets in the way of building fluency.

But actually, if we'd solve that, we would allow so many more people to build that fluency and allow so many more people to then have agency and also solve so many problems. I am the new chair of UD Music Foundation. Ud EAD is here in East London and is all about opening up opportunities in a way that folks, especially from this area, might not have seen or observed or be aware that that is value that they can bring to this space.

Anne-marie first came to us. She was part of a scheme called Young Board Members. Roll it round, roll it round. Wow. Energy, intelligence, insights, drive, passion, leadership. That's how I describe her. The focus on music technology tends to be embedded within the songwriting and production process. We need to build the skillset that is going to make people's careers fit for purpose. She's a detailed person, so gets under the bonnet. That detailed knowledge and insight on how technology is changing people's lives, visionary.

Aid Lab or AID Lab is the Artificial Intelligence Design Laboratory. And as far as we know, it's the world's first dedicated laboratory to bring together design with artificial intelligence.

The folks at Royal College of Art, that is really, really cutting edge. A lot of folks don't get to see that, don't even imagine that a lot of those things are possible or that that would be a problem you want to solve.

We look at transforming bio-waste into new materials and textiles.

I still love technology. I love the problem that can be solved, and I'm also incredibly curious about things.

Anne-marie is a member of our council at the Royal College of Art. She's a great champion and supporter of what we do. Whenever I talk with Anne-Marie, there's amazing curiosity.

Whereas being able to have it then choose is brilliant. And why not be inspired by nature?

There's no holds barred about asking the questions. They're very considered questions, very thoughtful interventions about what is the direction of research policy? Why are we doing what we do? Also, also about how do we make sure that technology and stem is available for everyone. It represents everyone, brings everyone into that conversation. She's really someone who's writing the future and enabling people to be part of that future and write it as well.

I think I'm very conscious that I am a young, black woman from East London who's had a very different upbringing from a lot of people at these board tables, who spends a lot of time with young people. And so there's a a lot of insights, experiences, stories that I get to hear that then can be fed back at those top levels. And so being able to bring that to such a wide range of institutions excites me because that's my way of doing the systemic change. Attack from the bottom and attack from the top. And that's what I'm doing. And you've got to learn the system to be able to change it. Hello. Hey, let's do that. In your brand new I'm from hometown. I know. I'm on your job and everything. Yeah. Number 17. That's why you need to get the tattoo or the T-shirt or something. Yeah, or number one, first woman. I think we'll get you a number one T-shirt. We'll make you a number one T-shirt. Am I dancing inside this woman at table? Yes. I'm dancing inside because for a lot of folks, if you can't see it, you can't be it.

I'm dancing because if she's able to occupy that position, who else could occupy other positions? Why have I met so many directors of GCHQ? That's fine information. I'm joking. You'll have to ask them.

I have a hunch that in 20 years time, when we look back on Anne-Marie, she will be seen as someone who has led the charge. I think she is destined for even greater things. I think her dad wants her to be Prime Minister. Let's see.

I love to be remembered as being a big part of that move or that change towards who is technical, what does it's going to look like? I have no idea what's next. Also, I'm still curious. This is basically me opening the VCR player, but just in a slightly different way. I could literally be sat here for hours. Yeah. Yay.