BIO/
Long bio
(1000 words)
Sarah Moran is co-founder of Girl Geek Academy, a movement to bring one million women and girls into technology careers by 2030.
Sarah has been immersed in tech and STEM for most of her career. Learning how to code at the age of five and building websites and digital products throughout her teens, Sarah was confronted by the negative stereotypes around girls and tech within the teaching world. She has also worked across Australia and Silicon Valley, where she witnessed first-hand the challenges faced by women in the industry.
Sarah established Girl Geek Academy in 2014 alongside her four fellow co-founders Lisy Kane, Tammy Butow, Amanda Watts and April Staines, as a place to learn, connect and inspire change.
Helping inspire a generational shift in the way political leaders, schools, young girls and professional women think about and practice STEM, Girl Geek Academy has trained more than 1000 teachers in #MissMakesCode, the world’s first hackathon for girls aged five to eight. That equates to a reach of more than 10,000 students in Australia now exposed to STEM education from the age of five.
Girl Geek Academy is also behind Australia's first all-women hackathon, #SheHacks, and Australia's first all-women makerfest, #SheMakes. An Anthill Smart 100 finalist, it partnered with the Victorian government to deliver a hackathon tackling family violence in Australia and launched the world’s largest all-women Games Career incubator, #SheMakesGames.
Most recently the team created "Girl Geeks" - a four-book series published by Penguin Random House's Puffin line to get young women who love tech into popular culture, popular in Australia and Ukraine.
In 2018, Sarah won the Australian Women’s Weekly Woman of the Future award in the Entrepreneur and Business category and has since been invited to judge the awards. Fellow judges include Julie Bishop, Ita Buttrose and Narelda Jacobs.
Awards include the QUT Young Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alumni Award, Cisco Women in IT Community Award and the Australian Director's Guild “Innovation Award” for her work in the screen industry (games).
In 2018 Sarah joined the Channel 9 Today Show experts, regularly appearing in features on gender equality and STEM issues for the popular breakfast TV show. Sarah joined reality television on the Network Ten and Foxtel Lifestyle topical news show, Common Sense, which was filmed in the Girl Geek Academy office.
Sarah is a regular panellist on “Download this Show” with Marc Fennell, which is podcast, broadcast on ABC Radio National and snippets often make it to TV on Saturday mornings.
An active community contributor, Sarah has previously been a member of “Leonardo Group”, the brains trust of Science Gallery Melbourne, a member of the Victorian Minister's Advisory Council for Gender Equality, an ambassador for Brisbane City Council’s youth program, Visible Ink, and is a member of the Future of Work Summit advisory board. She was also on the VicHealth Youth Taskforce and a VicHealth champion, sat on the RMIT Games Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) and the Melbourne International Games Week Steering Committee.