“Blimey!”
“That was awesome!”
“That’s tonight’s dinner conversation sorted!”

When was the last time you heard someone speak and elicit that kind of response?
It was standing room only at Innovia Technology yesterday, as the team gathered to hear Dr Ghina M. Halabi speak about all she’s achieved in her career to date, how she came to be the first person to gain a PhD in astrophysics from a Lebanese university, and why she believes that it’s so important that we have more women at the forefront of science and business.

Interviewed by Innovia’s Dr Guen Bradbury, Ghina reflected on how she plants seeds at every opportunity. She encourages people to think about what makes sense – especially when she’s working with women on their careers. Reflecting on how EntrpriseWomen is an incredible community, she said it’s so much more than a training course – that it supports women as they take steps to commercialise their research or ideas, and in doing so, shapes their mindsets and outlooks. When thinking about her own contributions as the Programme Lead, Ghina felt that it wasn’t her job to build their confidence per se – her job is to help them develop skills and knowledge, to learn how to access tools that could accelerate growth. From there, women develop a confidence that they can build a company. They build themselves up, armed with the skills they’ve developed together. They learn from each other’s successes and failures, and support each other.

That same approach – of sowing seeds that enable others to grow and develop – is being applied in her parenting. As well as fostering a growth outlook in younger people through She Speaks Science, Ghina is encouraging her own daughter to have a questioning mind about the world, and appreciate that she has freedom of choice – which in and of itself also brings responsibility.

Attendees were also taught all about stars, how they work, and why they are so important in the universe. There was laughter as Ghina drew parallels between the scales of progress and development for both stars and women’s issues. Facilitating the conversation, Guen said: “Ghina skilfully wove together stories from astrophysics and stories from supporting women in business to help us see why women in science and business bring benefits to innovation, organisations, and to society. She talked about how processes at different time horizons can be part of the solution (for both understanding stars and understanding gender equality).

My favourite learning was that stars make up less than 5% of matter in the observable universe, and yet their activity affects almost everything. The next time I describe someone as a ‘star,’ it will be a much richer compliment. I have a whole new appreciation of the power of stars.”

Ghina added: “I’ve never seen humility and brilliance shine together so effortlessly in any professional setting quite like at Innovia. I’ve also never been anywhere that radiates curiosity, smashes stereotypes, and embraces forward-thinking so wholeheartedly. I loved being back at Innovia and reconnecting with so many friendly faces. You know it’s time well spent when you leave feeling inspired, energized, and absolutely buzzing!”

From there, Ghina joined the Innovia team for lunch, and sampled some of the bake sale we had in aid of Cambridge Women’s Resources Centre, before speaking to the business with her thoughts on how physics is an ideal way to frame activities to support #AccelerateAction.

Learn more about EnterpriseWomen and Dr Ghina M. Halabi here. And if you have events coming up where your own team would benefit from hearing about life as a woman innovating in STEM, please get in touch – we have women vets, medics, behavioural scientists, physicists, designers and business strategists at Innovia, who’d be happy to help!