Over the past 20 years, Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, the impassioned Sky at Night presenter, has been on a mission to inspire the next generation of scientists by teaching and sharing her insights on physics.
“It’s about the power of dreams,” says Dame Maggie. “All my life I have been reaching for the stars, metaphorically and physically. I’m an optimist and a crazy dreamer but many of you here today in this room are successful because you are optimists, too; I think that is how we’ve succeeded.”
Such has been her influence as a role model to budding young scientists, in 2023, toy maker Mattel created a Barbie doll in Dame Maggie’s likeness to celebrate her achievements in making space and science accessible to girls (it looks like me on a good day, she jokes).
Dame Maggie’s story is one of true inspiration. Born in London to Nigerian parents and dyslexic, she went to no fewer than 13 schools. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t fascinated by space and astronomy – inspired from a very early age by The Clangers, the 1970s stop-motion animated children’s programme and Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek (“What a fantastic woman!”).
Growing up, ‘space’ gave Maggie a sense of belonging. At school, pupils would tell her that she didn’t belong, while at home, her Nigerian relatives would often highlight that she had never been to Nigeria. “Space transcends all of that,” she told our audience. “When you see our glorious planet from space, you don’t see barriers, you don’t see countries, you just see our planet.”
Houston, we have a problem
During her 50-minute talk, Dame Maggie highlighted the dwindling interest in STEM subjects (science, technology engineering and maths) at school. “Houston, we have a problem”, she warns. “I was never told as a child to think big and think crazy. When I said I wanted to be a space scientist or an astronaut, the teachers just looked at me and said, “Oh, Maggie, with your academics, it’s just not going to happen”.”
Fewer than 15 per cent of 10 to 14-year-olds consider becoming a scientist or an engineer and one of the issues, Maggie suspects is an image problem. People think scientists and engineers stay in their ivory towers and do weird things at night, she says.
Maggie’s ongoing mission is to spread the word (she estimates that she has spoken to more than half a million people, many of them children) on why STEM matters and why it is such a joy.
“Just speaking to kids about space, astronomy just makes my heart sing,” she says. “It’s trying to move away from this image of scientists and engineers being socially inept,” says Maggie. “As a space scientist, I get to do such cool things. I travel, I build satellites and I look at the very edges of the universe. I get to meet stars like Tom Hanks and go to Netflix parties.”
A shortage of future scientists isn’t the only issue; just 22 per cent of the core STEM workforce are women. “If we made stem more diverse, we would fulfil that shortfall, says Maggie. “If we could adjust these numbers, we would have the pioneers, the entrepreneurs, the people that we need tomorrow.”
Dyslexic superpower
During her talk, Dame Maggie also touched on dyslexia being a superpower. An ambassador for Made By Dyslexia, she believes that we should celebrate dyslexic thinking, because, “it turns out that dyslexic thinking, which is about empathy, communicating, storytelling and exploring curiosity, is what the world needs at the moment.”
Driven, energetic and passionate, Dame Maggie returned to the subject of International Women’s Day highlighting the World Economic Forum has warned that there won’t be gender parity until 2158, which is five generations time but championed to our clients that they are the movers and shaker to do it.
“We should encourage everybody in our lives to have a big, crazy dream, be bold, aim high and love every second. We need everybody to be stubborn optimists for International Women’s Day, this is what we need, more stubborn optimism, so we’re not waiting five generations for change,” she added.
A resounding success
Our Weatherbys Inspires initiative is Weatherbys Private Bank’s platform to do all we can to encourage everyone to engage in their family or individual finances, particularly women. This latest event to celebrate International Women’s Day was an overwhelming success; our guests who included women from the legal, medical, financial and science professions, as well as entrepreneurs and philanthropists were transfixed.
As one remarked, “Dame Maggie was an inspiration to us all – what an amazing lady!”, while another said, “Dame Maggie is a powerhouse woman as were so many of the women gathered in the room.”