Gouri Hiremath explores the importance of an early STEAM education and why building skills doesn’t need to be complicated.

The educational route, when planning a future career, can come with many twists and turns. Often young people may have already graduated from school or are taking a year out to contemplate their options before settling on a course or company.

This can have its own benefits as you may find that now you are more emotionally prepared or mature enough for the next phase of your life. But for others, it can be a straighter road, where they know from a young age exactly how their professional life will begin. 

With that in mind, for Gouri Hiremath, a senior software engineer and STEAM Studio ambassador at Liberty IT, it is critical that students and young people be exposed early on to positive, career-shaping opportunities, so that they have the know-how to make the most of their education. 

Initially established at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Liberty IT have expanded the STEAM Studio in partnership with the Galway City Museum, with the location now serving as a dedicated west of Ireland hub. 

Offered to young people in secondary school, the STEAM Studio is a collaborative workspace that has been designed to connect coding and technology with the museum experience, inspiring young people to explore and develop their tech skills and empowering them to consider a career in the industry.

Hiremath explained: “As part of the free programme, which includes return transport for schools availing of the workshop, Junior Cycle students are upskilled in coding that enables them to design and create their own arcade game, all inspired by Galway’s maritime heritage and supported by Liberty IT volunteers who are our STEAM Studio ambassadors.

“The Galway programme is structured as recurring workshops across the school year, rather than a one-off event,” she added. “It’s been purposely created for students aged 13 to 15, at that key point where they’re starting to think about higher education and future pathways.”

Go west

For Liberty IT, the STEAM Studio is a tangible medium through which the organisation can invest in the communities in which its employees live and work, helping to inspire the “next generation of tech talent in the region” – which Hiremath noted is of particular importance as young people living in the west often have less access to structured, industry-led STEAM programmes.

She explained: “Many of our STEAM Studio ambassadors are from in and around Galway and they’re hugely passionate about showing students that you can build a tech career here, in your own city, without having to leave.

“Partnering with Galway City Museum to expand STEAM Studio has given us a unique setting to blend local heritage, creativity and technology. Coding a game inspired by maritime history lands very differently when you’re doing it in the museum that tells that very story.”

The programme is designed to build a mix of technical and transferable skills, where young people can explore coding while also developing creativity through simple game design. They learn how software works behind the digital world, and design their own characters and stories.

“We want them to leave thinking, ‘I made this, what else could I build?’,” said Hiremath. 

And it isn’t just about developing coding skills, Hiremath noted how initiatives such as the STEAM Studio programme build career skills. She explained, students work together in groups, communicating their ideas, building confidence and resilience as they talk through what they have created and the challenges. She said that they see first-hand how “getting it wrong is both normal and fixable”. 

Don’t lose steam

To fully engage with learning in the STEAM space, Hiremath finds that consistency is key. With that in mind, the programme made the deliberate decision to use an approved coding platform that was already familiar to teachers, so that STEAM Studio visits can be easily connected back to everyday classroom learning. It also provides important safety measures that don’t limit a child’s potential or curiosity.  

“A vetted platform also builds trust with schools and parents by ensuring strong standards around privacy, safeguarding and age-appropriate content,” she said. “Because the tools are available in schools, students can continue experimenting after the workshop, allowing STEAM Studio to act as a catalyst rather than a self-contained experience.”

Ultimately, for Hiremath, positive experiences at a young age can influence how young people view their future careers. 

“When a 13-year-old builds their first game with a STEAM Studio ambassador beside them, technology stops being abstract,” she explained. “It becomes something they can do and that identity shift is hugely powerful when they make subject and career choices later.”

She said that this direct interaction both with technology and with the people who inhabit the roles they may want to step into down the line, can empower students to ask the right questions, making what is often viewed as a complex field more relatable and attainable. 

“Having STEAM Studio ambassadors from different backgrounds, career paths and regions helps challenge the idea that tech is only for a particular ‘type’ of person,” she added. “They can see someone from Galway, working in tech in Galway, giving back to the city.

“Our long-term ambition is that some of the students who come through STEAM Studio will go on to become the tech talent of the future.”

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