The film highlights what holds girls back in the high-tech fields that create our future: science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Through one girl’s story, it shows that our everyday comments and unintentional gender-biases steer girls away from STEM fields. In the end, it proves that all our actions have an impact, and it also reminds us that women are a huge untapped talent pool who can reinvent the future.

The Verizon Foundation has a long-standing commitment to bettering the world with forward-thinking, innovative solutions and part of this initiative has been to get more young girls involved in STEM with app challenges and virtual learning for the last two years.

Prior to this campaign, most people were not broadly aware of the importance of getting more girls into STEM. Even in the rare case that it was brought up, those messages targeted grown women when it was already too late, rather than tackling the root of the issue when girls are young. Thus, in order to make a difference and actually push the needle forward, this campaign needed to make parents re-evaluate traditional roles and empower girls with math and science.

The campaign got an overwhelmingly positive response.

The word spread quickly with the film receiving its first 2 million views in 2 days. Parents, like Sheryl Sandberg, shared the message with their friends, family and broader networks to ensure that they understood the implications of their actions. And with the only paid media being bumpers before and after the six MAKERS episodes broadcasted on public television, the campaign still made an impact with over 320 million total views and 232 million impressions.

It repositioned Verizon as an innovative company that’s dedicated to solving some of the world’s most complex problems by not only provoking people to question the status quo, but arming them with the resources to change the future.

This campaign not only reminds us that girls are pretty brilliant too, but more importantly, it has already started to set the foundation for a movement where women are an equal part of our future.