In celebration of International Women’s Day, we shone a light on prominent female alumna to inspire a new generation of social entrepreneurs
Oxford Saïd MBA alumna Ruthe Farmer has won a new global award after setting-up a fund supporting women and non-binary people with low-income status into tech and engineering jobs.
Ruthe clinched first place in the Anthem Awards’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion category. The competition, launched this year by the Webby Awards, celebrates purpose and mission driven work and saw more than 2,500 entries from 36 countries. She also won silver for Leader of the Year for Responsible Technology.
Ruthe launched the Last Mile Education Fund in 2020, to give financial support to women and non-binary undergraduate students studying in America in the fields of technology and engineering, who experience a financial challenge that could stop them completing their studies.
Ruthe said: ‘I kept seeing that all of the efforts to push more diverse young people into pipelines for careers in technology were petering out towards the late stages, and that only 11 per cent of students who are from low-income families will graduate college in six years. So, what’s the point of spending all this money and resources to push people in, if we’re not closing the loop for them to actually finish?’
While financial support is typically aimed at the ‘top talent’ among prospective students and distributed via scholarships, Ruthe wants to open the opportunities to young women who show huge potential, but may be excluded from excelling because of limiting circumstances.
She added: ‘The ultimate aim is to see the young people in our society, regardless of income, as an investment opportunity. There is tremendous untapped potential in striving students, and we can’t afford for them to fail.’
Since the fund began, $17 million has been raised, with the aim of $60 million by 2030. Ruthe feels this is achievable as almost 20 per cent of their target has already been met. She sees the investments in these young people as cyclical and says that funding ‘the last mile’ means you have graduates who are being recruited within six months into high calibre organisations, who then become alumni and advocates of the programme and in turn, re-invest into the fund.
Setting out how her Oxford Saïd MBA helped her launch the fund, Ruthe said: ‘My Oxford Saïd MBA absolutely informed the process of how I launched this and how we raised this money, because we are coming at this from a venture capital, start-up approach versus a charity approach. I actually did do the business plan in partnership with a fellow Oxford MBA graduate. It all ties back to the Oxford MBA programme.’
After leaving the MBA programme Ruthe went on to work for various organisations, including the National Centre for Women & IT, CSforALL and the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she focused on tech inclusion both in and out of government.
You can learn more about The Last Mile Education fund and also connect with her on LinkedIn.
Read more about Ruthe’s initiative on the Anthem Awards website.