2019 NCWIT Summit: Shalini Kesar – Encouraging Girls’ Interest in Computing

During the 2019 NCWIT Summit, we sat down with several plenary speakers, workshop presenters, and other change leaders from the NCWIT community to discuss their perspectives on valuing diversity, changing systems (as opposed to “fixing” underrepresented individuals), recognizing bias, and more. The end result was a series of short videos that not only captures what drives these change leaders in their inclusion efforts, but also highlights research-based recommendations from the vast collection of NCWIT resources.

Dr. Shalini Kesar helps coordinate the NCWIT Regional Affiliate Award for Aspirations in Computing in Utah. In this video, she explains why the NCWIT resource, Top 10 Ways Families Can Encourage Girls’ Interest in Computing, has been so useful in her efforts to educate high school women in her rural region about the opportunities available to them in computing.

Transcript:

DR. SHALINI KESAR: Well, I’ve used a lot of the NCWIT resources, and one of the biggest resources I find, considering that we’re in rural counties, is the 10 ways families can encourage girls. [The] majority of the girls, I don’t think, especially the region that I’m in, [the] southern Utah area, most of them don’t even know the opportunities that they can avail in terms of career education. We are providing three things, and we call ourselves the MAD folks: Motivation, Awareness, and Diversity.

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