Women with microphone addressing a room of people

Crack the code: Girls’ education in STEM

Communications support for UNESCO conference

How we helped

The challenge

We jumped at the chance to support UNESCO’s recent conference on girls’ education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, otherwise known as STEM. Almost 350 delegates from 70 countries came together in Bangkok to ‘Crack the code in girls’ education in STEM’, to learn and share ways to get more girls into STEM and into these ‘jobs of the future’.

The UNESCO ‘machine’ had the conference itself in hand but needed support communicating it, to build anticipation amongst the delegates, as well as advocate more broadly online for women in STEM. We took inspiration from the incredible women around the world, doing ground-breaking work in their fields.

Our approach

We supported UNESCO by delivering:

Social media campaign
Social props at the event
Live scribing of 30+ sessions
Animated video to open the conference
Wrap-up video

Opening video

Our 1 minute animated video opened the conference, reminding everyone in the room of why we were there and our collective goals, as well as welcoming all to the conference.

Social media campaign

We created a social media campaign that began weeks before the event, starting with profiles of pioneering women from around the world. We loved researching and writing these profiles and were pleased to see them so well received on UNESCO’s global and regional social channels as well as by partners and delegates.

Read these stories here:

Our live illustrations and design assets were well received

Social props

To engage delegates at the conference, we produced speech bubbles emblazoned with inspiring, funny and and topical statements, and challenged everyone there to resist taking their photo with them. No one could resist and plenty of selfies and photos were taken and shared online, helping us reach over 12 million users. The hashtag #GirlsCrackTheCode even trended on Thai Twitter, just behind the American Video Music Awards!

Live scribing

There was also plenty of interest in the live illustrators we sourced, planned and worked with to illustrate in real-time, over 30 sessions across 3 days. We turned these boards into towers and placed them around the venue for delegates to walk amongst, review and reinforce what they heard in each of these sessions. The Minister for Education from Jamaica praised them in his closing speech and participating organisations even got to take some home to use in their work.

Wrap up video

Finally, we arranged for a local film crew to capture all the goings-on and turn three days worth of footage into a snappy 3 minute film that reflects the energy and enormity of the event. We loved scripting and editing the film you see here.