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  • Womens' STEM Award has been a European contest for the first time
  • Six successful STEM women have been awarded in Leipzig
  • Nearly exactly as many master theses have been submitted as bachelor theses this year

Are traditional "male professions" and "female professions" still a thing? When we look at the winning thesis papers from the Womens' STEM Award 2015, the answer is clearly "no." The submission by Inessa Agapova, for example, “Development of Innovative, Sustainable Technology Systems in Motorcycle Final Assembly”, leaves little room for tired clichés.

All the same, the hard numbers still speak a different language. According to university statistics in Germany, nearly all of the 62 submitted works were in degree subjects that are dominated by men. Changing this situation in the medium term is the goal of the Womens' STEM Award and its sponsor, Claudia Nemat, member of the Deutsche Telekom AG Board of Management, responsible for Europe and Technology. "The viability of companies in the digital transformation is highly dependent on STEM qualifications. Germany, in particular, needs a higher intake in these academic disciplines, including women. That's why we have to shine a light on successful STEM women," she says, describing her motivation and that of the competition.

That’s what winners look like
Women like the overall winner, Christina Süfke from the Hochschule Ruhr West – University of Applied Sciences. The energy computer sciences student won with her "Concept for the Modern Control and Management of the Distribution Grid". Winners were also selected in each of the five submission categories: Susanne Weber from Leibniz Universität Hannover won with her entry "Development and Evaluation of Participatory Design Methods for Security-Related User Interface" (Cyber Security). "State Diagnosis and Error Localization in Distribution Grids through Channel Measurements from Power Line Modems" won the day for Katrin Raab from FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg (Future Networks). Tiana Trumpa, RWTH Aachen University, won with a "Business Model Innovation to Increase Resource Productivity through Scheduled Maintenance" (Industry 4.0). Inessa Agapova from TU Berlin won with "Development of Innovative, Sustainable Technology Systems in Motorcycle Final Assembly" (Automotive Technologies). And Jacqueline Brinn from the London School of Economics successfully answered the question: “Are we killing time? Social Media and the Perception of Time during Leisure" (Digital Universe).

Deutsche Telekom – together with students' magazine audimax and the "MINT Zukunft schaffen" STEM initiative – organized the Womens' STEM Award for the third time. This year, in addition to STEM graduates from Germany, women from throughout Europe were also eligible for the contest. As a result, this year's entries included seven submissions from Denmark, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, and Hungary.

About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with more than 156 million mobile customers, 29 million fixed-network lines and around 18 million broadband lines (as of December 31, 2015). The Group provides fixed-network/broadband, mobile communications, Internet, and Internet-based TV products and services for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has around 225,200 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 69.2 billion in the 2015 financial year – around 64 percent of it outside Germany.

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