Countdown star Rachel Riley helps Edwina Dunn launch Stem career push

 

Putting her Tesco Clubcard days well and truly behind her, Edwina Dunn, co-founder of Dunnhumby, launched Your Life – a campaign to advocate for the importance of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects for school children, in Google’s Holborn den yesterday. 

 

The tech giant’s trendy neon signage and cool “coffee-trike” doling out flat whites reinforced Your Life’s message that Stem are not geeky. But there were plenty of industry leaders on hand to dispel the taboos as well. 

 

Secretary for education Nicky Morgan was there, banging her women and equalities drum in unison with education. Barb Samardzich, VP and COO of Ford Europe was there, as was Rio Tinto’s head of innovation John McGagh, who ribbed Google about how Rio Tinto has been using driverless vehicles since 2008. 

 

Chief exec of Carillion Richard Howson was calling for more skills but made the classic snafu of saying, “stem cells” when he meant “Stem subjects” – “we’ve all done that before,” laughed Dunn. 

 

Countdown star Rachel Riley and polar adventurer Ben Saunders illustrated alternative career paths for stems subject grads – and both proved popular with the crowd. 

 

The Capitalist even spied PR firm Seven Hills’ founder and event co-host Michael Hayman jostling with Start-up Britain founder Oli Barrett to get a snap with the pair afterwards. Now now, boys.