2014 NCWIT Summit – Special Announcements (Monday)

2014 NCWIT Summit - Special Announcements (Monday)
Play Video

[upbeat music]

LUCY SANDERS: I’m sitting here looking at this, not knowing exactly what to do with it, but…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Big green button.

LUCY SANDERS: The big green button, thank you so much. Was that a negotiation? I wanted to say I actually got this sweater at Nordstrom’s. I did not negotiate. I’m really quite sorry. Well – but I’m going to next time. So, welcome everybody. I really want to, on behalf of all of our staff at NCWIT, welcome you to the 2014 Summit. We have all kinds of content as others have mentioned, ready for you. Just like this wonderful talk from Maggie, on negotiation. And, as committed change leaders, all of us face negotiations everyday. And the mission that we focus on, which is increasing girls’ and women’s meaningful participation in computing. And so we must be better negotiators. We need to understand the science behind negotiation. And we need to really create some collective courage where we will go and negotiate on behalf of who comes after us. Or, who’s even with us. Right? Who our colleagues are. And so, thank you very much for bringing that message to us. We have also, in many of the other Alliance meetings and workshops that you’ll be going to over the next couple of days, we have a lot of content. We’ll be sharing things as member organizations with our successes over the last year, our challenges. And so that will also be business as usual for us at this Summit, which is all about change. But this year, we’re also bringing to the plenary stage, some member’s advanced announcements, around certain things that we think will be of interest to our broader community. We’re calling them ‘Special Announcements.’ Or ‘Flash Announcements,’ if you’d like. And so, we have three really fast ones. These are really going to be quick hit. The first person I’d like to ask to the stage is Ellen Spertus from Google. Many of you know Ellen. She has just been a tireless, tireless advocate for women in computing, and all students in computing. She is a computer science professor from Mills College, and she is also a Senior Researcher at Google. Ellen. [audience applause]

ELLEN SPERTUS: Thank you. Thank you for the introduction, and telling me how to use the technology. I’ve been fortunate, very fortunate, to work for two organizations that are concerned with women and computer science. At Mills, which is still a women’s college. At Mills, we produce women in computer science. And at Google, where I also work, Google requires women in computer science. The push for inclusion of women comes, it predates when Google hit HR. I’ve seen Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and especially, Senior VP Allan Eustace, who was a good friend of Anita Borg, speak from the heart about women in computing. And, at Google there really is this belief that we can’t solve the very hard problems without including women. Many of us have been working on increasing women’s participation in IT for a long time. For me, it’s been decades. And I know how hard we worked during the ’90’s, and how little results we got. That the numbers still went down, or stayed about the same. And what I’ve had to conclude is that hard work and good intentions are not enough. We have to look at what really works and emulate that. Reproduce that. So I’m very proud to share that Google is creating a set of awards with NCWIT to recognize Extension Services Clients for outstanding work on recruiting, retaining, teaching, and other innovations towards increasing women’s participation in computer science. So I look forward to some of you being on the stage, in future years, receiving these awards, sharing what works so all of us can learn from it. [audience applause]

LUCY SANDERS: I want to mention something about Extension Services for those of you who don’t know. This is a program that was started from the, you know, funded from the National Science Foundation, the EHR Directorate. It’s a client, sort of consulting basis that we work with certain University clients in terms of recruiting strategies and measurement and so forth. Pedagogy curriculum. So Google has really thrown it’s financial support, and it’s spiritual support behind this program so we can enlarge it to include more Universities, and also recognize them for significant contributions. So thank you again to Google. Our next speaker is Tami Mallett, who although she has a really fancy title at HP, with VP and Enterprise Group CIO, my most favorite title for Tami is she’s on the NCWIT Board of Directors, and she helps guide the strategy and the vision for the organization. And we thank her very much for her service. And she’s here as well for Special Announcement. [audience applause]

TAMI MALLETT: Thank you, Lucy. It’s a real pleasure to be here, and as Lucy said, I’ve had the great privilege of representing Hewlett-Packard, a bellwether technology company in Silicon Valley for the last two years. And actually, HP was one of the founding corporate partners, 10 years ago, with NCWIT. In my time at Hewlett-Packard, HP has been very dedicated to diversity and inclusion. And that is really represented and culminated in our Chief Executive Officer, Meg Whitman, which is only one of two women in the top 20, or the fortune 20 companies. And we have other senior leaders all over the company. HP is very committed to that. And when I got involved with the Board of Directors, aspirations of computing was the thing that really stood out to me as just, something that was close to my heart being computer science in high school and college, back in the day. And just meeting these young women that would come in just last year at the Summit, and get to talk to these young ladies, and just the incredible talent. And then I had the great fortune and privilege to work with Ruth and Lucy. And we gave out the 35 National Award Winners in March. And again, just the future is just bright and in great hands. And so, HP wanted to step up, and wanted to take that high school program that Bank of America has sponsored, and really wanted to extend that into the college level because we heard feedback that that was a big gap. There was a great framework at high school. But that was a bit of a gap going into college. So, we’re very excited today announce a new college entry level program for aspirations in computing, that’s really going to target an entry level on-ramp, if you will, at the college level to encourage and retain women in computing, as well as to have peer relationships and mentor and also develop deeper faculty relationships and have them be recognized for technical awards and technical achievement. So that is something that we will be starting to pilot this Fall. And we will be doing that for the next several years with support from HP. So, we hope that many of you, if you’re from the Universities in the audience listening, we hope that you will participate with us, and we look forward to a wonderful future to develop women in computing in the next few years. So, thank you. [audience applause]

LUCY SANDERS: We really appreciate HP support of this because we know it’ll have a lasting impact on women who are studying computing. So, thank you very much. Our third and final announcement comes from somebody I think many of you know as well. Don’t come up here yet, you stay right there. She’s so eager! She’s so eager! Rane Johnson-Stempson, Microsoft. Principal Research Director from Microsoft Research. Tireless advocate for women in computing, always doing something. And she’s going to tell us about one of those things in just a moment. We have great pleasure working with Microsoft and Rane, and others at Microsoft on a variety of things, the latest was an international Women’s Hackathon that they organized and ran, and we got to participate with that. And now Rane can come on stage. Rane Johnson-Stempson with a next big thing. Thank you. [audience applause]

RANE JOHNSON-STEMPSON: So it’s the big green in the middle?

LUCY SANDERS: It’s the big green in the middle.

RANE JOHNSON-STEMPSON: This is really fancy! Okay, so what I’m excited to talk to all of you about is something to hopefully anchor all of the great work in this room. As we all go all over the country and around the world talking to young women, it tends to be we still need to change the message. They still don’t get that computer science is creative, it’s collaborative, it’s exciting. That you can change the world in computer science. And so what we hope to do is under-ride a documentary film that follows seven young girls, aged 10-21, all around the world who are going to change the world in science in technology, and want to tell the world about it. And start a new revolution of young women leading the future innovations. And so, what we hope is that this is just the anchor, because somehow movies just get us all together. And in those movies, what’s more important is the engagement afterwards. By having young middle school, high school, and university women doing a panel there so they see girls just like them. That all of your organizations are in the room. The hacker space that has a place for girls to come to, the summer camp, the after-school program, the university programs, and that we all come together and change the message. And that everybody does screenings; Universities, Google, Intel, Microsoft, everybody. That we just make this no longer the best kept secret. And so, I just want to show you the trailer coming this fall. [upbeat music]

(VIDEO)

BELLA DAVENPORT: My name is Bella Davenport. I’m 18. And my big dream is to start a female revolution and change the face of computer science forever. [upbeat music] Coding is limitless. Technology is the new age. I’m the new age. And I’m going to create things that are amazing. [upbeat music]

KASSANDRA MORROW: Hi, my name is Kassandra Morrow, and my big dream is to be a Naval Officer. But, more specifically, an Admiral.

PA ANNOUCER: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. [upbeat music]

BOY: What made you want to get into the Navy.

KASSANDRA MORROW: It’s for people who are really dedicated to their country, to their academics. I don’t know, I just fell in love with it.

BELLA DAVENPORT: We often think to ourselves, oh, I have to be better than every male they put me up against.

CASSIDY: I could go all the way back to kindergarten where they told me I couldn’t play Legos because I was a girl. There’s no greater pleasure in life than doing something people tell you you can’t do.

ASYA: Our project was an application that targets dyslexic children and their parents. And that’s what we are basically trying to do, is to use the massive and impressive advancement of technology to solve problems.

We are now the competition. We’re coming. Watch out, because there’s nothing we cannot do.

I think my biggest dream, I really want to get into neuroscience.

My big dream is become an environmental engineer.

My big dream is I want to be someone’s inspiration.

My big dream is to get into a college.

And I want to hear what your big dream is. [upbeat music]

Educate a girl, change the world.

RANE JOHNSON-STEMPSON: So I hope you will join us. [audience applause] So I hope you’ll join NCWIT, ACMW, IEEEW, AnitaBorg Institute, CRAW, UN Women, ITU, and Office of Science Technology Policy in joining us to do The Big Dream Movement this fall, and let’s get every girl to want to be a computer scientist. Thank you. [audience applause]

LUCY SANDERS: Okay, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Housekeeping. Woo! Okay, so a few things before we send you off to your Alliance meetups and reflections. First thing is you’re going to notice a video booth brought to you by Turner Broadcasting our wonderful media partner. Since this is our 10th anniversary, we would love you to visit the video booth with a friend, or a total stranger. You know, grab somebody from the lobby of the hotel, I don’t know. But go and record a video vignette about change, about women, about computing, about you as a change leader, or practice, or the Summit. So that we can gather up these important parts of our oral history, it’s open all the time. So, please do visit that. Don’t be nervous. We’ve got a great director from Turner Broadcasting who will make you feel very at-ease. Second thing, we have something that will be coming very soon after the Summit. We are going mobile with our resources. So stay tuned for that. We’re calling it PockIT Facts. So that when you’re sitting some place and somebody says something you just zip it right up on your NCWIT mobile app, and get all the data, all the facts, set people straight. So that when your change leaders, you’re operating with the best possible data in immediate access. So, yay! Clapping for that. [audience applause] I’m personally looking forward to shaking my phone. All right. Enough of that. What we also have is our nature. Some great new resources. And, I think they’re described in our program, you’ll see them in your alliance meetings, and other places, out at the registration desk. We have a new resource series, a ‘Tips’ resource series, for example, and those of you who were here last year remember Carol Dweck’s plenary, I think, on mindset. And so we have some new resources on giving feedback to students and/or to colleagues in the workforce based on the mindset research. So, and that’s just one of, or two of, many of the new resources available for you. So please check it out. We have some new In-a-Box Programs, as well as Top-10 Sheets. The other thing is, Maggie wanted this red chair so badly that, she knocked it off the podium. Do you want this? I’ll give it to you. Okay? But not yet. Okay, hold on. Hold on, okay? Again – That was a negotiation. Just wait a second. You can have this chair. So, have you picked up your red chairs yet? [audience reply with applause] Yay, right. So these – of course, it’s our sit-with-me chair. And, you can go learn about Sit With Me at sitwithme.org. Wonderful 3D printer MakerBot volunteered to print all of these kits, and put them in their little Ikea-like bags with instructions and everything else, so that each one of you can take a red chair home, and have it for your very own. When you put them together, be a little ginger, of course, but they do fit. So if you have to force it, you’re not following directions. Okay, which for analytical, engineering, computing people like yourselves is shameful. So, although we don’t follow directions when we negotiate, right? So we’re supposed to go. So, with that, I will give this nice red chair to our plenary speaker, Maggie Neil. [audience applause] Okay, and thanks again to MakerBot, and also Emma Kow, who designs chairs and worked with MakerBot on the design of our Sit-with-Me chairs. All right. Last but not least, I do want to also say due to the surging enrollments of the Summit just over the last week to 10 days after we printed our program, we had to move some Alliance meetings around. So please do check your badge because they’re correct there. And if you get lost, or you walk into the wrong meeting, which I don’t want you doing, the registration desk also knows the right rooms. But just check your badge, they should be right there as well. Badges are required for all events and we have an increased security profile for some of our speakers this year. So we want to train you now to wear your badges. In the past we’ve been a little loose with that, but we can’t be for some of our sessions. So, please make sure that you wear your badges. So right after this meeting, in fact, right now, we’re going to run to our Alliance meet-ups, that should be fun. We’re doing a lot of work up front in this Summit with our Alliances first, so you’ll be having a meetup, and an orientation, if that’s what your Alliance wanted to do. You’ll have some good networking time. And then tomorrow, early, we hit the Alliance meetings for what, four hours, I think. So every Alliance meets for four hours in the morning. Breakfast is 7 o’clock, and then we come back here, after we eat again, lunch, we come back here at 1 o’clock, and planery content starts again. All right? So we’ll do an NCWIT at 10. We’ve got another plenary speaker, Michael Kimmel, who’s going to talk about men. So all you men need to be here for sure. And it just gets better from there. So have fun at your Alliance meet ups, and meet some great people, and share some great ideas, and have some food and drink. Thank you. [audience applause] [audience chatter]

More Videos

Scroll to Top