Nigeria : Anne Marie Imafidon, the young math prodigy turned STEM promoter for girls

Anne Marie Imafidon, originally from Nigeria, is a math prodigy who made history in England when she got her A-level at 11. In 2013, she founded “STEMettes”, a social enterprise that promotes female careers in sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She is also a visiting professor at the University of Sunderland in England.

Today, Anne Marie Imafidon is committed to promoting STEM among young girls. To date, her NGO “STEMettes” has mentored more than 60,000 girls in STEM in England, Ireland and Europe.

If she is so involved in promoting STEM among young girls, it is precisely because of her atypical background. At a very young age, Anne Marie Imafidon was already ahead of her peers. At the age of 10, she obtained a scholarship to study at St. Joseph’s Convent in Reading. In 2003, at just 13, she won a scholarship to study mathematics at Johns Hopkins University. Two years later, in 2005, she joined a study program at the University of Oxford. Two years later, at the age of 17, she became the youngest Master’s student. In 2009, she obtained a master’s degree in mathematics and computer science, becoming the youngest holder of a master’s degree in England.

Promoting women in STEM

After working for some time for Goldman Sachs, Hewlett Packard and Deutsche Bank, she created the NGO « STEMettes » in 2013. The aim of the organization being to promote the work of women in STEM. Among its activities, the NGO organizes meetings, conferences, to accompany young girls, women who aspire to make a career in STEM. She organizes events, creates content for free programs for girls aged 5 to 25.

In parallel, she co-founded «Outbox Incubator», an incubator that accompanies young girls who want to create their start-ups in the field of tech.

In 2020, she published her first book “How to be a Maths Wizz ” and in 2022, “She’s in Ctrl”. A book that explores the reasons for the under-representation of women in technology and the means to reduce this situation.

Committed against street harassment

She is also committed to fighting against street harassment. After seeing a video showing a young girl being harassed on a bus in India without the passengers intervening, she decided to create an anti-harassment street badge. Via an online application, victims can send an alert and people wearing the badge can see it turned on. Two possibilities then present themselves: either pushing people to intervene or offering harassed people a way out.

In 2017, she was ranked in the BBC 100 Women Street Harassment Team. Because of her commitment to girls, she was also crowned a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2017 at the age of 27, becoming the youngest recipient of this honorary title since 1890.

At only 32 years old, Anne Marie Imafidon holds honorary doctorates from the Open University, the Caledonian University of Glasgow, the University of Kent, the University of Bristol and the University of Coventry. She also received an honorary scholarship from Keble College, Oxford. She was recently appointed President of the UK Science Association for the year 2022/2023.