The #YoFísicaEnPódcast Challenge Brings Together 130 Participants to Celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science

• The content stood out for their originality and variety of formats, including interviews, dramatizations, and songs.
• The initiative aims to foster scientific vocations without gender bias, highlighting historical and contemporary women scientists such as Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Lise Meitner, Anne L'Huillier, and Donna Strickland, among many others.
• The IFT has produced a compilation video featuring the best moments from the submitted podcasts, now available for viewing.

To mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT) UAM-CSIC has presented the results of its annual #YoFísica challenge, which aims to inspire scientific vocations free from gender bias. This year, 130 participants of all ages joined the #YoFísicaEnPódcast challenge, inviting students and the general public to create audio or video podcasts about the careers of various women scientists.

The challenge was met with great enthusiasm, with participants ranging from preschool students to young people and adults from different educational institutions and independent entries. A total of 76 original creations were submitted, shining a spotlight on the work of women in science, particularly in physics.

Creativity was the highlight of this edition: real and fictional interviews with scientists, a theater play, a rap, and first-person dramatized stories. The selected scientists included historical figures such as Marie Curie, Vera Rubin, Ada Lovelace, and Lise Meitner, alongside contemporary role models like Anne L'Huillier, Donna Strickland, Gabriela González, and Fabiola Gianotti.

All submissions are available on the official challenge website and the IFT 11 de Febrero YouTube channel. Additionally, participants will receive a #YoFísica t-shirt. To showcase the diversity and quality of the submissions, the IFT has created a compilation video, which is now available for viewing.

11 de Febrero Initiative

Spain joins the celebration of February 11 with over 300 events. Educational centers, institutions, and organizations have made an extra effort this year to fill February with science, organizing more than 300 events. Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) remain underrepresented in key fields.

The ninth edition of the 11 de Febrero Initiative will take place from February 1 to 16, 2025, hosting over 300 events that will reach more than 9,000 students. Nearly 60% of these events will be held in schools. A full list of scheduled talks is available on the official website.

For the past nine years, the 11 de Febrero Initiative has worked alongside the scientific community to bridge the gap between STEM and education through projects like #EnClase11F, recognizing the classroom as a crucial space to combat gender disparities in science.

In addition to these activities, #Centros11F will organize their own internal events around the celebration, totaling 215 events. Non-educational institutions will also participate, with over 70 entities hosting activities such as scavenger hunts, exhibitions, talks, workshops, and documentaries—83.3% of which will be held in person.

All events within the 11F framework can be found on the official website. Additionally, social media users can follow the activity using the hashtags #actividades11F, #actividad11F, #centro11F, and #11F2025. As in previous years, stores will also join the initiative with #escaparates11F displays.