She signed up for IYM to escape tunnel vision. Six years later, she spent 45 days camping in the Taylor Valley chasing greenhouse gases out of melting permafrost. Caitlin Berquist grew up in Ōhope, a small town near Whakatane, a long way from Wellington. She did IYM in Year 12 in 2019 and remembers being locked onto one path at the time. “I was very much like, I’m going to be a doctor or a vet, kind of my whole life,” she says. “And then when it came to applying for universities, I had a bit...

Nadia Prasetyo attended IYM from her bedroom during COVID, after her residential programme was cancelled and replaced with IYM Online in 2020. Six years later, she's an Associate Research Fellow at the University of Otago. Her biology teacher pointed her towards the programme, when she was looking for something to do outside school. She already knew she liked STEMM, she just didn’t know which part of it. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I was sort of exploring between biology, chemistry,...

For global software company Octopus Deploy, supporting Innovative Young Minds (IYM) is about more than sponsorship. It’s about helping more young women see themselves in STEMM — and giving them the confidence to take the first step. Founded in Brisbane in 2011, Octopus Deploy builds tools that help teams deliver software across complex cloud and on-premise environments. With engineering teams spread across Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Middle East, the company knows firsthand how...