The AstroVoices project is an initiative that aims at celebrating female astronomers and students, giving them a “voice” to share their passion for astronomy, thus hopefully encouraging more young girls to get closer to the fascinating field of astronomy.

Yesterday,  on UNESCO World Science Day for Peace and Development, which aims at celebrating science as a powerful mean to attain peace and to benefit society, by strengthening public awareness, promoting scientific cooperation, and highlighting challenges faced by science, we released 5 videos, collecting an internationally mixed and diverse community of female astronomers.

Each video lasts about 12 minutes and can be found on the dedicated Astro Voices YouTube channel.

The project was launched in March 2019 via a call for video-clips, to honour the 100^th anniversary of the International Astronomical Union. Participants were asked to keep their clips short and say simple sentences (e.g., “Astronomy is my passion”, “I love astronomy”, etc.) in any language of their choice.

 The unexpected overwhelmingly response (more than 600 video-clips, from more than 60 different countries from almost all continents), followed by the pandemic, had a major impact on the timeline, but the project has now achieved its first target. 

My warmest thanks go to all those who enthusiastically responded to and supported this initiative and to David Meissner for painstakingly editing the video-clips!