The original idea for the Girls in Control workshop came from Margret Bauer and Steffi Knorn. The workshop was planned to run as a robotics workshop in German for girls in Berlin during the 21st IFAC World Congress in July 2020. Once it was apparent that the 2020 IFAC World Congress would run on a virtual platform, Damiano Varagnolo and Roxanne Jackson joined the team to help develop engaging materials that could be used on a virtual platform.
Running the workshop virtually removed geographical barriers and to reach a larger span of girls the new problem became language barriers. Thus, the idea to develop the workshop materials in many languages developed. Through colleagues and connections, control engineers from around the globe were contacted and encouraged to develop the materials in their mother tongue. Already in July 2020 we had a complete set of materials in 6 languages. Since then more colleagues joined the efforts and we currently have material in languages.