The Women's Audio Mission has just opened a new training facility in Oakland California. Opened in July, it is hoped that this new space will serve over 3,000 young women and girls by 2020.  The team at Audient are very proud to be able to support the new centre by donating ten of their iD4 audio interfaces to run along side WAM's iMacs and iPads.

The original WAM studio, in the heart of San Francisco, is the only professional recording studio in the world built and run by women and has a fully featured 48 channel Audient ASP8024 console where over 1,500 women and girls per year come to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) and creative technology studies with courses that are designed to inspire them to amplify their voices and become the innovators of tomorrow. WAM’s award-winning curriculum weaves art and music with science, technology and computer programming and works to close the critical gender gap in creative technology careers.

The new site in Oakland was chosen off the back of successful partnerships with some of the areas underserved schools.  WAM Founder and Executive Director, Terri Winston told us...

WAM is thrilled to establish this anchor in the Fruitvale District, where we have been partnering with underserved Oakland schools for over five years now.  With so many partner schools within walking distance, we can now easily reach the schools and girls that need our programs the most.

More On WAM

Following our article on Women in Audio, we invited Terri Winston onto our podcast. Listen to podcast 280 to hear much more about the amazing work the Women's Audio Mission is doing in the San Franciso Bay area to address two critical issues...

• Less than 5% of the people creating the sounds, music and media in the daily soundtrack of our lives are women.
• The alarming 70% decline in women/girls enrolling in college STEM programs since the year 2000.

WAM’s Accomplishments Include:

• 400+ women have been placed in paid positions with Google, Pixar, SFJazz, NPR, Dolby Laboratories, KQED, recording Mary J. Blige & Hillary Clinton for Apple, Comedy Central, Tracy Chapman, Animal Planet, Electronic Arts, etc
• The White House Office of Social Innovation visited WAM to learn about WAM’s revolutionary methods of educating young women and girls.
• WAM was named “Best of the Bay” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
• 2,000+ classes given to 8,000 women/girls over 14 years
• WAM has produced and recorded albums for over 150 artists from 21 countries, including Grammy-winners Kronos Quartet, acclaimed author Salman Rushdie for NPR, Angélique Kidjo (2014 Grammy Winner), Oscar-nominated film, “Dirty Wars”, tUnE-yArDs, Clarence Jones (Martin Luther King’s Speechwriter), award-winning singer Tanya Tagaq, and St. Lawrence String Quartet, providing work experience for 215+ women.
• WAM was awarded Google RISE Awards in 2015 and 2016 for WAM's integration of computer science into their curriculum.

Would You Like To Support WAM?

As Terri mentioned in podcast 280 there are a number of ways you can get involved and help support the work Terri and her team are doing in the bay area...

• Become A Member or Ally - Be the first to know about special members only and VIP events, get free magazine subscriptions and passes to conferences as well as discounts on audio gear and text books. Student or Professional Member Levels are for anyone who is woman-identified (transgender or cisgender), non-binary or gender non-conforming. The Ally Level is for men or other identified persons that want to show their ongoing support of WAM’s programs and initiatives. 
• Buy A WAM T-Shirt! - Show your support by sporting a WAM T-shirt! Visit their store and check out their latest merchandise.
• Partner With WAM - You can help sponsor WAM's online programs, training, or donate gear to the recording studio and training facility as Audient has done.
• Volunteer - You can contact WAM to see how else you can get involved!
• Donate Now - If you would like to support WAM financially then you can do that too.

If you would like to get involved and support the work of WAM then go to the Get Involved page on the WAM site.