Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

She recalls how it was precisely this spirit that spurred her on to success as one of only two girls in her advanced maths group at school.

“It actually made both of us even more competitive and more determined to prove ourselves and be better than the boys,” she says.

“I think Russian women are pretty confident about being in a minority, mainly because of the support they have had from their parents from a young age.

“Mine never queried why I was interested in maths and engineering – it was considered to be very natural.”

Olga Reznikova, whose largely self-taught approach to Stem led to her current role as a senior software engineer, is a case in point.

Growing up in a small seaside town populated by miners and fishermen, her love of computers began when she was just four, but it was a struggle to turn her passion into a career.

Turning to online tutorials, she mastered the basics of algorithm design, machine learning and programming and made money coding simple websites.

But wary of a future stuck in “IT outsourcing sweatshops”, she headed to St Petersburg to study further and land a bigger role.

“For a while I was the only female programmer at my company,” she says.

“I did encounter some issues with being taken seriously, but I stayed with it and am now earning a salary that’s 30% higher than before.”

While Russia is doing something right, it’s still not there yet in terms of gender parity.

“There is no doubt that Russia is firing up girls’ imaginations,” says Mr Lambertin.

“Bringing creativity to the classroom with hands-on, practical application, and stressing the relevance of these subjects by focusing on the workplace, could be the way forward for those countries where girls are currently very disengaged.”