Attendees at the FIFA Fan Festival may have spotted some lime green 3D-printed statues as they walked in through the south entrance of the festival. The statues are a part of the #IfThenShe Can-The Exhibit: Game Changers, which features 26 STEM innovators who have helped the world of sports.
The exhibition is from Lyda Hills Philanthropies’ IF/THEN initiative and features 10 Dallas-Fort Worth-based women.
“From sports medicine and biomechanics to engineering and shoe design, these innovators are shaping how athletes perform and how fans experience the game,” Nicole Small, CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies and cofounder of IF/THEN, said in a statement.
“We hope visitors leave with a new appreciation for the many careers that power sports and the realization that they don’t have to be on the field to make an impact. If a young person walks away thinking, ‘I could do that,’ then we’ve accomplished exactly what we set out to do.”
These women are called game changers because of their impact for women in their industries. The statues were created using a 3D printer and UV-cured acrylic gel, and each statue has a QR code that provides more information on the women. There are many Dallas icons showcased, including former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, Cynt Marshall, and Dr. Antonia Chen, a hip and knee replacement surgeon at UT Southwestern, where she is also a professor and chair in orthopedic surgery. Her statue shows her holding a knee replacement implant in between the thigh and shin bones.
“The best part of this exhibition is seeing all of these women doing different things,” Chen said. “Twenty years from now when they do another display of statues there’ll be hundreds of them, not just 26 of them.”
The exhibition is near the main stage at the FIFA Fan Festival in Fair Park.