Nobel Foundation’s archives are massive treasure troves of information, but dense and inaccessible. With our microsite, "Women who changed science," we sought to design a guided “trip down the rabbit hole” of women laureates in STEM that would appeal to young women and girls interested in science and math. Microsoft Artificial Intelligence technology surfaced new connections between the female laureates themselves as well as between laureates and the user; it’s an interactive spider web of STEM, full of both science and humanizing content to inspire a new generation of young women. Our all-in budget of just over $700K covered creative ideation, licensing and expansion of the Nobel archive, site development, roll-out, and campaign costs. Our goal was to reach young women and girls who are interested in STEM but don’t see themselves represented in the current batch of Nobel laureates; only 3% of the 600+ laureates are women.

Microsoft’s goal as a brand is to empower everyone to achieve more. Since only 3% of the 600+ Nobel Prizes in hard sciences have been awarded to women, there is definitely room for improvement! Women who changed science helped young women and girls interested in STEM learn from women laureates in the sciences, hopefully inspiring them to work in STEM themselves. Our partnership with Microsoft and Nobel Media allowed us to use Microsoft AI to unlock the full potential of the Nobel archives. The thousands of files of biographies, autobiographies, photographs, videos, notes, and various other ephemera could not have been consolidated in a digestible way without the use of AI, because of various stipulations in Alfred Nobel’s will that disallow human “assumption” in any categorization.

With our microsite, we sought to design a guided “trip down the rabbit hole” of women laureates in STEM that would appeal to young women and girls interested in science and math. Based on their personal interests, users could “match with a laureate” and were guided through an interactive narrative around their life and industry-defining work. Microsoft AI surfaced new connections between the laureates themselves as well as between laureates and the user; we then designed our site to be as “sticky” as possible and drive exploration across subjects and laureates with pop-ups throughout each narrative that led to new stories. For the campaign, we focused on sharing humanizing content, surfacing new scientists and achievements to inspire a new generation of young women.

For Microsoft, this project was a chance to showcase creative uses of its suite of AI products, in an educational and service-based way. For the target user, a young woman or girl interested in STEM, "Women who changed science" served as a lightning bolt of inspiration. We reached more than 100 million users over the course of our campaign.