On this week’s Joy Beat, we’re talking about robots and the young women who build them. 

Women make up just 16% of the robotics and engineering workforce in the U.S., according to the National Girls Collaborative Project. The field has long struggled with diversity, but this week’s Joy Beat honoree is helping more young women and girls get a seat at the table. 

Joyce Sidopoulos is the cofounder and chief of operations of MassRobotics. Through its Jumpstart Fellowship Program, girls of all backgrounds can pursue a career in robotics through hands-on experience, mentorship and, of course, joy.

Sidopoulos joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share more about the program. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: The Jumpstart Fellowship Program started in 2021. Take us back to the founding. What inspired its creation?

Joyce Sidopoulos: Yes. So, in 2021, we had a company here. They had hosted a high school fellow or intern for part of their summer. They came to us and said, “You know, we would really love to be able to do this more. How do we get girls, how do we get people from the Boston community — and, really, the underserved community — into understanding all of the career opportunities in robotics?” And that’s all he had to say to me.

Then, we got a group together. We went out to a lot of our robotics companies and startups in our ecosystem and asked, “If you would take a high school intern, what would you like them to know?” They kind of gave us a foundation [for the curriculum].

After the pilot year, we started with eight students, and we got internships for them. Then, after those internships, we surveyed the girls who got the jobs and said, “What do you think you didn’t know enough of?” And then, we talked to the employers and said, “What do you think the girls need more of?” So every year, the program gets refined a little bit more so that the girls are better prepared.

This is really an amazing opportunity for high school girls to get hands-on experience, and an employment experience, where they’re going to a workplace, not going to school. They’re with adults, so they really have to learn how to interact with adults, how to treat a boss; you can’t text them when you’re going to be late for work. It’s a lot of social skills as well.

Rath: Talk a bit more about the curriculum and the technical skills taught in the program.

Sidopoulos: So, we do build a really strong technical foundation, giving them all of the core tech they need. For robotics, you have to be able to design, so we have a whole six weeks where they’re learning how to design, and then they actually take those designs and fabricate them physically. They go into the machine shop, and they learn how to use the drill press, the saws, the CNC machine, the laser cutters, and the 3-D printers. They also learn a lot of programming and electronics.

They do have a final project, so they learn a little bit about how to design, build and test. The final project this year was a wearable; they had to design and build a wearable something that had a function and had electronics built into it.

There are some really interesting projects that come out of that, but they really learn the full cycle. You know, robotics isn’t just being a mechanical engineer; it can be a designer; it can be a programmer. There are a lot of aspects that go into robotics.

Rath: I want to talk about what these girls are facing. I mentioned that just 16% of robotics and engineering jobs are held by women, so could you talk a bit about the barriers these young women are facing? Why is that number so low in 2025?

Sidopoulos: I think where the drop off these days is when women maybe don’t feel as welcome, or maybe don’t have the confidence they need to be in this kind of world.

It’s different — women and men are different. You know, we’re equally as strong in technical expertise, but we really are different. Women are community builders. They like to be around other people. They like to collaborate.

It’s hard to put your finger on it, but it just seems like there is a drop off [among girls’ interest in the field]. One of the aspects of this whole program that we run is introducing these students to women in the field and potential mentors. Every week, we have a woman from robotics — and it’s from all levels; we have senior executives down to someone who has just finished college and is in their first job — and ask them all types of questions, like “What challenges did you face? How did you pick your first job? What did you study? Did you pivot?”

I think, at the end, these girls have built out a huge network of professional women that they can count on and depend on.

Rath: I have to imagine it must be an extraordinary feeling for you, seeing these young women achieve that level of success and growth.

Sidopoulos: Oh, totally. You know, it’s interesting because every mentor, after they do the lunchtime session, they come away and send me a thank you note for having them be a mentor. I feel like the mentors get just as much out of it as the girls do, right? You want to give back and see the impact you’re making on the girls, and it’s very rewarding.

If you’d like to nominate someone or something for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at (617) 300-BEAT [2328].