Cards Against Humanity release pack to aid women in STEM

31 Mar 2015

Founder of the incredibly popular but rather crude card game Cards Against Humanity have taken the decision to offer a new science-based deck which will fund to encourage more women into STEM subjects.

The fund which will be generated by the sales of the packs costing US$10 will allow for a number of women seeking undergraduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to receive a scholarship and will be known as the Cards Against Humanity Science Ambassador Scholarship and will be open to the US public from autumn of 2016.

This will not be the first time the team behind the game have used their popularity with people online as a means of raising funds for worthwhile causes having previously generated US$2m in funds for the Wikimedia Foundation, the Sunlight Foundation, and DonorsChoose.org.

Scholarship applications will be reviewed by a board of over forty women who hold higher degrees and work professionally in science, including representatives from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, the Smithsonian Institution, the Adler Planetarium, and the US Army Corps of Engineers, as well as TED, NSF, Huxley, and Hubble fellows.

Speaking of their decision to raise money for the scholarship, Cards Against Humanity co-creator Josh Dillon, who will defend his thesis on astrophysics at MIT next month, said, “Women are under-represented in science, tech, engineering, and math, and we felt like the funding from this pack could have the greatest impact by making it possible for more women to get an education in those fields, and by giving them a platform to share their work and their passion for science.”

Inspirefest 2015 is Silicon Republic’s unique international sci-tech event running 18-19 June in Dublin, connecting professionals passionate about the future of STEM with fresh perspectives on leadership, innovation and diversity. Buy your early bird tickets now Get in early and grab the ‘Two-for-one’ tickets before the end of March. You don’t want to miss this!

Women Invent is Silicon Republic’s campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been running since March 2013, and is kindly supported by Accenture Ireland, Intel, the Irish Research Council, ESB, Twitter, CoderDojo and Science Foundation Ireland.

Cards Against Humanity image via Zlatko Unger/Flickr

 

Colm Gorey
By Colm Gorey

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic. He joined in January 2014 and covered AI, IoT, science and anything that will get us to Mars quicker. When not trying to get his hands on the latest gaming release, he can be found lost in a sea of Wikipedia articles on obscure historic battles and countries that don't exist any more, or watching classic Simpsons episodes far too many times to count.

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