NCWIT 2012 Summit – Flash Talk, David Notkin

JEFFREY FORBES: So finally, let’s welcome Dr. David Notkin, who’s the Bradley Chair in Computer Science at University of Washington, with a talk on increasing flexibility.

DR. DAVID NOTKIN: So once again, I find myself in a ballroom filled with incredible women with incredible ideas at an NCWIT meeting. I was one of the early chairs of the Academic Alliance, and it’s great to be here with what I hope is a useful but, I’m sure, small idea. Perception matters. As you look, even thinking about these two questions means that you’re thinking about the perception, right? How else could you have a judgment about that? So we have to consider perception as part of our reality, because it is. Three things I’ve learned at NCWIT meetings include the McGurk effect, which says what we hear depends on whether we see or not. Implicit bias says our experience in history affects how to see other people. And all of these feed in to the way we perceive ourselves, and the way others perceive us, and the way that we perceive others perceive us. And so on, I guess it’s an Escher moment of some sort, but these matter. So this is me, this is part of my history. My mom used to ask every friend that came into the house, my sister’s and mine, “What does your father do for a living?” Because she was trying to place some things in a world. She was very nondiscriminatory, but it helped her understand the context. But me, I ended up always in a slice of the pie where people looked mostly like me, right? [audience laughs] I’d never felt lonely, I was rarely in a place of my own, except for my beard maybe stood out for a while. I did practice Aikido for 18 years, and that was a more diverse group. My teacher was a 4’10” Japanese woman, but the tradition was, of course, a Samurai tradition, which was quite male, so it had that. Then I got to the university, and what did I have? I had a class, essentially, of mini-mes. [audience laughs] They looked like me, they thought like me. The only good news was when I told a joke, they all laughed. [audience laughs] Go figure, but that part was good. In 2007, I had come back from a Sabbatical in Sweden. That was great, and it was past some medical difficulties, and I decided to take some Pilates to increase my health, and had a fantastic teacher at the gym right across, a five-minute walk from my office. But I got to that class, and all of a sudden I looked around and it didn’t look like me. It wasn’t only that the teacher didn’t look like me, but the students no longer looked like me. It wasn’t mini-mes, right? That’s a different story. They had different age, weight, sex, probably clear. Center of balance, flexibility, strength. It was really different. I just was, I guess, less female than them. And what I realize is that not only was the atmosphere different from myself, it was different for the class. I remember one time when the teacher was saying, “Okay, class, now everybody pull your weight up under your chest.” And somehow I don’t think that was what she was gonna say, had I not been there. So, I was trying to learn leg circles one day, and I was realizing, who do I look at? Will they see me looking at them? Will they think I’m looking at them, or looking at them? Will they be willing to pair up with me or whatever? So in the Pilates class, I was learning something new, like Maria Klawe suggests. It’s a good thing for people who teach to learn things new once in a while. And that gives you some sense of the other people that you’re teaching. But I realized that I wasn’t only learning something new, I realized that it was the first time that I could consciously remember being a minority in a learning situation. I was there, and I was different, and what I realized was in nearly 30 years at the University, it was the first time I had a glimmer of, maybe, what it meant to be a minority student in our classes, in our labs, and in their careers. And I’d like people to learn that a little bit more quickly, so I want people to loosen their shackles a little bit, have themselves and their colleagues take, find a learning situation where you’re the minority, don’t all do it together, ’cause it won’t work that way, and go out there and see how it feels. Does it change the way you experience the world? Does it change your self image a little bit? How do you absorb the learned information? Do you get to see yourself through other peoples’ eyes? And that’s a useful kind of thing. Of course, every coin has two sides, and I think those of you who are used to learning in a minority situation should probably try and learn in a majority situation, too. That’ll build empathy for teachers in that situation, because it works from all sides. It’s not a straightforward activity. So, in any case, sometimes increasing your flexibility is a little bit scary, a little bit uncomfortable. They’ll give you insights, perhaps, you don’t wanna have. [audience laughs] But it’s worth it, and a special thanks to Jenny, and thanks to all of you and to my colleagues. [audience applauds]

Vimeo ID 46997621


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “Empowering Latinos in Computing” by Idit Harel Caperton and Jennifer Aguayo

[upbeat music]

JEFFREY FORBES: So, we’re going to go through each of the speakers. As I invite each of our speakers up to the stage, please hold your applause until his or her talk is completed. First up, we’re going to have Empowering Latinas in Computing, that’s by Idit Harel-Capelton, who’s the Founder and President of Globaloria and the World Web Workshop, and also Jennifer Argüello, who’s the Executive Director of Latino Two. [audience applause]

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: Hey, my name is Idit, and I’m the President and Founder of the World Wide Workshop and you can tweet your questions to me @idit.

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: Hi, I’m Jennifer, and I’m the Executive Director of Latino Two, and the Chair of the Advisory Board of Globaloria in Silicon Valley. You can tweet me @ngjenn.

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: So through my partnership with Juan Sanchez, who is the CEO of Southwest Key, the largest non-profit in Texas, and through my work with his faculty at EA-Prep, I became familiar in the last four years, with some of the pressing issues of Latino kids, and what they’re facing throughout the Nation. Through our work in East Austin, Texas, and also in San Jose, California in the last two years, I became familiar with the huge opportunity gaps that exist in those two low income, economically and technologically underserved communities for Latino kids and youth. So all youths in the Nation actually have computing education crisis, but I’ve recently learned from my friend, Jennifer, here, that Latino population which is rapidly growing, still remains under-represented in the same workforce and computing in particular.

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: So in the Silicon Valley, 25% of the working population is Hispanic, but only 5% is part of the actual computer workforce. And this is scary ’cause I grew up there, so I saw it. So, similar disparity is also in many of the communities around the United States, and it’s only gonna get worse, because the Hispanic population is growing. Today, it’s 17% and in 2050 it’s projected to be 26% of the population.

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: But, Latinos only make up 8% of the STEM professionals, and our little non-profit, the World Wide Workshop, has been working in schools, after school, summer camps, and different programs in California, New York and in Texas, racing to figure out best solutions for computing education to this largest, exciting, youngest, fastest growing community. Because if you want to remain competitive global leaders in technology and computing, we have to really make sure that we serve these Latino kids, because there will be two, three jobs available upon graduation, and it’s going to double in the next 10 years. So, what do we need to do to empower Latinos and Latinas in computing. Jennifer was just one of two undergrads in UCSC in Computer Science, and this is really silly, because we know girls can really do all that stuff.

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: So what are the barriers? There’s limited access to technology and good STEM curriculum. There is negative perception of STEM fields, it’s just not cool. And there’s an absence of role models and mentors. Can we solve this problem?

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: Ah, ya! I believe we can solve it. We actually developed Globaloria as a alternative solution. We have found that availability of engaging STEM and Computing Education starting young is key to preparing these youth to high quality STEM jobs. So, we have seen that empowering these communities by making games and coding games, working in teams, providing cutting edge STEM learning system can really work. And we also found it to be very effective for English language learners.

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: So students get in to STEM by creating educational games on topics that are important in their community. And teachers can use Globaloria in core or in enrichment courses, and align with common core ISTE nets and Next Generation Science Standards. So other organizations working in this area are, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Latinas in Computing, Level Playing Field Institute, just to name a few.

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: All these organizations and all these programs really empower access and opportunity, and they are core to empowering these Latina girls in STEM. We need to give them a chance to see that they can succeed, they can transform their own self-perception about their interests and their abilities. So, here is a great example, we are stuck, okay, here is a great example.

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: Truth. So here comes a great example of a game that was built by an all-girls team in a high school that is 80% Latino. They did this as part of their, here it is, they did it as part of their English language learning arts class. And so, they were in a low income school in San Jose. So the next scene that you’re going to see is built by an all-boy middle school team, where they are from a population, yes there’s a little gender disparity in terms of types of games. [audience laughing] It’s 82% Latino in their school, and 64% English language learning, but what I love about this is that you see both girls and boys in Globaloria classes. So you see that gender parody happening.

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: But it’s not just about how the students progress and perform in computing, it’s also about their teachers. An empowered teacher is part of our success equation. We must provide training and mentoring to teachers to master blended learning. And a typical Globaloria t-page allows progress and tracking and dashboards for both teachers and students. So, we know that Latino kids are facing serious challenges and a lot of issues when it comes to computer education, but we need to give quality access to quality courses. And we have data to show that certain programs work well to increase their participation, their passion and their skills. Thank you National Center for Women in IT to give us an opportunity to present our programs. [audience applause]

JENNIFER ARGÜELLO: Well, coming from someone that learned how to program at six, it really works when you start young.

IDIT HAREL CAPERTON: Starting young! Thank you. [audience applause]

Vimeo ID 71041735


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “Social Media for Change Leaders” by Herb Morreale

[bright music]

JEFFREY FORBES: Our last speaker is Herb Morreale who is the CEO of 6kites, an Entrepreneurial Alliant member company. Give him a round of applause for that, [applause] who’s going to be speaking about the 1:9:90 rule of social media.

HERB MORREALE: Alright Seth, I don’t have Rocky music, but I’ve got Jonny Quest. [laughter] So I’ve been on a quest since 2008 to figure out whether a simple concept could affect how you do strategy in online communities, both internal and on Facebook. It’s called the 1-9-90. Very simply, within a population you can predict that one percent will add content, nine percent will comment, and 90% will be lurkers. So if you think about Facebook, and any other online community, it’s basically people sharing, and connecting with each other. And there are patterns in how this happens. If you can influence it then you can make this community do things. So I went on to a quest at TeleTech. TeleTech is a global call center company. At the time there was 70,000 employees looking for a big problem to solve on my quest. And that problem turned out to be a thing called after call work, and it’s the time from when the agent hangs up the phone, takes their notes and gets onto the next call. Very expensive time. So we tried to shorten that. And we created a community. And I influenced those ones, and I got the nines to comment, and all the lurkers watched this all happen, and then we turned it into videos. And we saw a 50% reduction in after call work. That was $500,000 worth of return on investment in a matter of weeks, literally. So I’m feelin’ pretty good. So we went on to do some other things. It all was great. But now I had to go conquer the big gorilla. Facebook. So we looked at Facebook. And we went into the API, and we built an application that crawled Facebook pages, looking for patterns. Could we see the 1:9:90 rule playing out where a few people influencing a very large group. And I saw some interesting stuff. So I hooked up with my friend, who is the e-commerce at Crocs, or VP of e-commerce at Crocs. And I said, let’s go study this stuff. So he said, well let’s look at Crocs, and Uggs, and Nike. And we actually did Adidas too, but I didn’t put their shoe up here. And we began to see patterns in who was influencing who. And in fact, some of the numbers that we have, interestingly at the time, was there was about 6,000,000 at Nike. You can see how they were dominating the population. And because they’re a large population, they create a lot of activity. Well that’s not very interesting, ’cause it doesn’t help me with 1:9:90, all it tells me is they’re acting. So we have to look at engagement. Engagement is a percentage of that population that takes an action, so I’m looking at how many. Are there one in nine? Did we get 10%, no. We actually got .63% of the entire population we measured taking some kind of action, influencing, hmm, 99% of the people. So now we have one percent of the people influencing 99% of the people, when we talk about it on a larger scale. Which is why only one percent of the people matter at all when you’re trying to influence the group. But then you had to think, well that’s a very, very small percentage of the population. How can we influence them even more. Let’s use photos. So it’s common knowledge that photos drive more engagement on Facebook and internally even. However 8.5 times more is a really big number. So the next place on the journey was at Forest Oil. So this is a client that we work with, and they’re an oil and gas company. And they have some business in the Eagle Ford area, which is the second largest oil shale play in the United States right now. We wanted to influence people. Very specifically, in specific zip codes there. Those are, he’s a lurker, and a land owner. And so we found out that the photos that had the highest level of engagement were photos with sunsets. We took months to figure that out. We posted them, and then we directed them right at land owners. Now Facebook does these kind of funky things. They actually make you pay to reach those lurkers after a while. You only can cap out at about 30% if you’re lucky. So then we pay them and we get to reach more lurkers through those photos, and those are the land owners. So now, most of you aren’t in marketing, and don’t really probably care about Facebook too much for these kind of things. But you do have internal collaboration, and communities where people are sharing information. And so you can take all these same things and apply it internally. So, hmm, you always have to have a dog. Dogs make you cooler if you’re Jonny Quest. So you put all this together. And you realize that one percent of the people are impacting all of the others. And it’s all the others that do most of the work. So now real quick we’re gonna have some fun. And at the end of this Flash Talk, how many people have a birthday in May? Okay, a little less than 10% of you. Now only 10% of the rest of you clap. We’re gonna like you. We like you. 10%, come on, try it, see. [clapping] Alright, you just commented. But all of you were lurking. Most of you were lurking. See, it’s a very simple thing. I ask a question, a couple people do this. [claps hands] And everybody else figures out what’s going on. And you learned who’s birthday it was, if they raised their hand high enough. So anyways, it’s just a fun little example. The lurkers are the people who matter in the 1:9:90. And if you can influence a community, the ones and the nines, or rather the point one and the point nine. The lurkers will be absorbing that information. You can do that for NCWIT issues, you can do it within your business. Thank you for listening. You can actually reach me at Jonny Quest, at 6kites, [laughter]` thank you. [applause]

Vimeo ID 70421157


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “Making Technology More Accessible” by Emily Peed-Brown

[upbeat music]

JEFF FORBES: We’re here at NCWIT. We couldn’t do anything without highlighting one of our illustrious national aspirations winners. So next up we have Emily Peed-Brown who’s going to speak about making technology more accessible. [applause and cheers]

EMILY PEED-BROWN: Hi guys. My name’s Emily Peed-Brown and I’m here to speak about accessibility in technology. Accessibility is something that is barring people from pursuing a career or an education in the technology field. When you hear me speak about accessibility I’m primarily taking a focus on people having access to learning materials. These learning materials may be available online, which is why I take a focus on internet access, as well as how people personally feel about pursuing this field. If we take a look at internet access we see that 78% of Americans have it. That leaves roughly 69 million people without access. I can personally speak about the trouble it can be to not have access and pursue a career in technology and interest in it. Most high school technology textbooks are going out of date far to fast for schools to keep up with. This isn’t a negative thing. It’s just how our field is. But it does leave our students learning outdated materials and standards. Rural areas have more accessibility issues than many might thin. If you see the images, the blue depicts those who have internet access. The more rural of these areas is leaving about 20 million people without adequate internet access. Efforts on part of President Obama to increase access in these areas has helped. But until we fully connect this area we need to focus on getting people excited about technology and to see the benefits of it. We all know that education and income have an explicit relationship. Those who have a high school diploma or pursue a higher education earn more money, which puts them at a higher chance of using technology, or using the internet to learn. Some people can be intimidated by things we may not even consider. As an extrovert I try to imagine what it can be like to be shy and in this field. If your only access to technology is a club after school, then you might have trouble joining if you’re shy or you have poor social skills. Next, I’m going to speak about the things that we tell ourselves in our heads. There are so many of us that when we’re about to express ourselves we shoot ourselves down before we’re ever able to speak. And that keeps a lot of people from pursuing this field. We need to take time to demystify technology. There’s still people who firmly believe that technology is some monster that’s gonna swallow you whole. And there’s so many people who just look at the metal box on their desk and are intimidated by it. We can feel that we’re not intelligent enough to understand something. When computers first came out they had to be programmed using assembly. That’s tough. That can be intimidating, and from then on out I feel a diversion has been formed, those who can play with the computers and those who build them. We are one of many. We can be guilty of feeling that the work we do makes such a minuscule difference that it isn’t worth pursuing. That’s heartbreaking. Every person should be reminded that the work that they do is worthwhile, that their presence in this field can make a difference. The first thing we should do in our quest to improve diversity in our field is to make sure our attitudes are in sync with our goals. We cannot doubt what a person can do based on first impressions of them, and we can also take our time and materials that we no longer use and donate them to worthy technology programs. The computers we can donate can be recycled, and they can be refurnished and given to people who truly do deserve the use of them. They could also be disassembled and people could get to play with the internals to get more comfortable with the computers that they’re intimidated by. E-books could also be an alternative to bulky textbooks that college and high school students alike are supposed to carry. There are grants to aide high schools, and providing those students with E-readers to usher in a new technology age. Those who think they aren’t smart enough to understand technology just need a gentle guiding hand. Someone who is shy just needs a friend to show them the ropes. Everyone learns a little differently, and each type of learning needs a different style of encouragement. And encouragement can truly make all the difference. Sometimes people can be discouraged from the work because they feel like their work doesn’t matter. A simple appreciative thank you can make someone’s day better, and make them feel a devotion to their work because they see a direct implication of it in people’s lives. When you go to something technology-based don’t just invite your friends who already know or interested in technology. Take a chance of being shot down and invite someone new. You might make a friend out of it too. [giggles] Accessibility rears its ugly head in many different forms. If you try and isolate the root of these problems we can try and increase participation rates overall. The problems in this field can range from accessibility, self esteem, and from social skills. Oh I’m sorry. [loud laughter] Can I still say my last line? Okay. I didn’t see it change. I wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for my involvement with NCWIT. Their work has opened up doors for me that personally I would have not known had existed. I firmly believe that if we all work together we can make a field that is open and equal for all. [applause and cheers]

Vimeo ID 70420967


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “COMPUGIRLS: What We Can Learn” by Courtney Besaw and Daysha Edgerton

[upbeat music]

JEFFREY FORBES: Next we’re going to hear from some of our younger speakers Courtney Besaw and Daysha Edgerton are going to speak about COMPUGIRLS. [audience clapping] So, they’re both COMPUGIRLS with graduates and they’re gonna tell us what we can learn from the experiences of two girls in a culturally relevant technology and activism program. Good job guys. [audience clapping]

COURTNEY BESAW: All right so I’m Courtney I just finished my freshman year at Arizona State University.

DAYSHA EDGERTON: I’m Daysha and I just finished eighth grade.

COURTNEY BESAW: And we’re here to talk about a program a technology and social justice program called COMPUGIRLS that we are a part of and talk about some of the things that we learned in the program and some of the things that we can all learn from our experiences within the program. So first and foremost COMPUGIRLS is a culturally relevant technology program for girls from high-needs schools. Which just means COMPUGIRLS gives girls from low income schools access to technology that they don’t necessarily have at home, while teaching them about social justice and how to positively impact their community. So COMPUGIRLS combines technology, social justice, and community activism. It teaches the girls how to research a social justice topic that they choose. It gives them the resources to create a new way of presenting a topic and then actually gives them the opportunity to go out in their community.

DAYSHA EDGERTON: Why diverse girls? Because girls are less likely, with less opportunities, are less likely to go into, to get a job in the STEM field.

COURTNEY BESAW: Now I get to talk a little bit bout me. I come from a low income home. My mom raised my brother and I by herself while going back to school and trying to work at the same time. So she was doing a lot. So we didn’t have all the same access to same technologies that a lot of other students my age had. So COMPUGIRLS became a place where I knew girls were going through the same stuff that I was going through. And they were always there to learn more about technology and learn about their communities, which was really nice to be able to have that sense of community within the program. Getting to learn how to program, how to create movies was really neat also. So, my favorite thing was Scratch. ‘Cause programming sounds really difficult. It sounds really hard especially when you’re a 15 year old girls who’s never even touched a computer like that before besides to use Word. Programming was really neat to be able to do. And Scratch is the perfect tool to be able to do that with because it is really basic, it was made for the purposes of teaching younger students, which is really nice. So, it was really simplistic but it was also really good to be able to start on such a basic program. And that was really empowering to be able to learn to program while being a 15 year old girl was really cool. But, it was empowering to be able to do it with girls who were like me, who came from similar situations that I did, and then actually getting to go present our research and present our projects out in the community was intense. And COMPUGIRLS gave me a lot of other opportunities. So they taught me the tech but they also gave me the opportunity to use my technical skills. I did an internship with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. I got to teach and mentor girls at the Gila River Indian Community and now I’m a research assistant for the COMPUGIRLS program.

DAYSHA EDGERTON: So I thought that if I liked technology, I would get called a nerd and a loser by my friends and they’d make fun of me, and I wouldn’t be cool like everyone else. So. [audience laughs] My Grandma told me about a program called COMPUGIRLS and at first I was like psh are you kidding me. And then she said it was for girls like me and I was like why not do it. And then. [audience laughs] We did an iMovie and I thought that was my favorite because I got to create what I wanted and I got to have control over what I wanted. And I was passionate about doing iMovie. So, I did mine about child abuse. And now, I can openly talk about social justice issues, such as the portrayal of women in media. And I just realized that the media portrays us women to be perfect and whatever and I now know that I can do anything I set my mind to. And women can in general and I mean, go out there and do it. And I did a child abuse project in Scratch about a girl who did drugs and alcohol to cope with her child abuse but then she turned her life around and went to college and became a lawyer so. [audience laughs] Look out because girls like me are gonna change the world. [audience cheering] [both laughing]

COURTNEY BESAW: So some of the things that we can learn from our experiences in COMPUGIRLS is that girls want to be in technology and they can do whatever they want to do. And we can get more girls, especially girls of the color, and girls from underserved areas into technology while creating the next generation of activists who are readily equipped to change the world around them. This is my favorite slide. [audience laughs] Technology is everywhere, technology is used in every single field nowadays so there’s no excuse not to try to get these girls into technology and give them access to resources that they don’t normally have. And it’s never been more important than it is today to do those things and we know these things from our experiences with COMPUGIRLS.

DAYSHA EDGERTON: We know this because we are COMPUGIRLS. [audience cheering]

COURTNEY BESAW: Thank you for having us!

DAYSHA EDGERTON: Thank you.

Vimeo ID 70420413


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “Sit With Me” by Avis Yates Rivers

Jeffrey Forbes:  We’re very lucky to have Avis Yates Rivers, who’s the founder of Technology Concepts Incorporated, as well as being an NCWIT board member. She’s going to tell us a little something about these iconic chairs behind us and the “Sit With Me” campaign.

Avis Yates Rivers:  Great, I get to go after Seth. I thought y’all loved me, I thought y’all loved me. Here’s the red chair. I’m Avis Yates Rivers and I am the national “Sit With Me” spokesperson. It’s my pleasure to be with you today to tell you a little bit about what the Red Chair’s been doing, where it’s been for the last year.

Here’s the chair’s life, a year in review. Now some of you may be new to the family, and so you may not know that much about it. What is the “Sit With Me” thing? And why the Red Chair?

This was a campaign that was created to broaden the conversation, right, get more people talking about the scarcity of women in IT. We launched this first in our own community, the five alliances that make up NCWIT. So I’ll share with you a couple of the stories and photos of what the Chair has been doing within these alliances.

We’ll start with the Academic Alliance. You see Oregon State University here. We’ve got the men’s basketball team with their coach who is Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson.

We’ve got their mascot Benny and the pep band and the president of Oregon State asking you to sit with him. Then we’ve got Gael, this civil engineering student who is a gymnast, balancing not only herself, but a heavy red chair on that balance beam. I don’t know, it must be youth, because I don’t know how she does that.

We continue to another couple of Academic Alliance members, Wheaton College and Purdue University. The Academic Alliance has been astronomical, and very very impressive with all that they have been doing.

Further, we have University of Pennsylvania students there, and Carnegie Mellon students and faculty, everybody loves to sit in the red chair. What we want you to do is just tell us how you’re going to change the world for technical women. There’s Seth again.

We went to the 60 conference down in Florida, well Seth is in Florida, and we’ve got him. He’s a superstar, he’s a rock star. We have Ann standing in the red chair.

Then, this is the K‑12 Alliance of course. We did some partnering with the girl scouts. They’re both young, and it’s never too young to get them started. That’s Violet Apple who runs the girl scouts of eastern Massachusetts, we partnered with her at the Massachusetts conference for women.

Going to the Entrepreneurial Alliance, Andreessen Horowitz hosted the Symons Innovator awards, and Caterina Fake who is the founder of Flickr was the honoree. Heather Champ accepted it in her honor. She was one of the first Flickr employees.

SpotXchange has been spot on with all of the activities that they’ve been involved in. We thank you SpotXchange for your energy and your excitement.

Then we are going to the AGA. I was happy to host a conference, or a panel, at the NPower event in New York City. We’ve got some senior technical women who all sat in the red chair, and told us how they’re going to continue to empower technical women within their corporations.

What can I say about Microsoft? They have hosted almost 150 events, Dalene King tells me.

How about that chair sitting in front of the Berlin Wall? How cool is that? That’s a piece of the Berlin Wall.

Our very own board member Nancy Phillips, the CEO of ViaWest, hosted an aspirations event with winners from Texas in her huge data center. Look how it dwarfs the chair. This is a big chair. That’s a big data center.

Then of course Facebook‑ers, they had to get involved, lots of graffiti walls and folks sitting in the red chair. What? Is that their COO Sheryl Sandberg leaning in? I think so. That’s her, so thank you.

The CEO of Broke‑Aid reminds us that we still don’t have enough women in IT, so what are you going to do about it? Bloomberg, they partnered with three universities, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and University of Pennsylvania, and had some events at all of those.

Rackspace had a little too much fun down at South by Southwest. I think so.

We had another financial services event in New York City that I was able to moderate a panel of senior technical women, hosted by Credit Suisse, Citi and Deloitte.

Celebrities get the idea. That’s my good friend Mikki Taylor the editor‑at‑Large of “Essence Magazine,” who joined me in Massachusetts for that conference. No, that’s not a miniature chair, that’s Shaq just sitting in.

I was with him a couple of weeks ago. That dude is huge.

Looking forward, we start them young, we continue the conversation, and we are looking at a bright future.

You’re probably asking, “What can I do”? and I’m glad you asked. You can go to Sitwithme.org for ideas, photos, and stories of how this has been used and how you can use it yourself. You can buy your own red chair. You can buy other “Sit With Me” swag. You can contact me if you need a speaker at one of your events, and please follow me @SitWithAvis.

Thank you very much.

[applause]

 

Transcription by CastingWords

Vimeo ID 70358915


2013 NCWIT Summit – Flashtalk, “How the Media Can Affect Students in STEM” by Allison Collier

[upbeat music]

JEFFREY FORBES: So next up we have Allison Collier, who’s going to be speaking to us about how the media can affect students and STEM. And I have to point out another aspirations winner. So give her a round of applause. [applause]

ALLISON COLLIER: My name’s Allison Collier and I’m gonna talk about how the media can affect students and STEM. And on the next slide I have a couple of statistics about how much time kids spend using the media. And I just want to say that when you spend that much time watching TV then you’re going to, it’s going to affect you in some way. It’s gonna socialize you and let you know the state of the society especially when you’re that young and that impressionable. I know, for me, that was true because in middle school I noticed that there weren’t a lot of black characters on TV that I identified with, especially black girls, and I didn’t want to be like the ones that were on TV. And I felt really, really isolated by the media and it didn’t help that I went to a predominantly white school. And math and science I was not very good at it, and I was very introverted so it was really hard for me to explain what my problems were to my teachers. And since I didn’t see many black characters on TV and seeing that they liked math, I thought maybe math is just not supposed to be my thing. So I spent a lot of time neglecting my grades, and a lot of time on YouTube watching and making videos, but I just kind of let school slide by me in middle school. So I talked to my parents a little bit. Actually, these are a few of the shows that I watched in middle school and there’s a noticeable lack of diversity in the cast. And the characters that were black were usually portrayed stereotypically, and I didn’t enjoy that when I was in middle school. I really only identified with four of the characters And I really liked their gadgetry, but I didn’t like the fact that they were all guys and I definitely didn’t want to dress like them. [laughing] So I felt kind of isolated in that sense too. In eighth grade I talked to my parents about going to a public high school for high school. And I was really excited about that and then I was like, wait a minute, grades count in high school. I should work on those. So I decided what if I got all As for the year. Or for one quarter. And I made that goal and I actually did make all As for the whole year. So I was very happy about that and I felt confident about going to high school, and I thought maybe school is my thing. And maybe I can be good at math and science. After all, so in high school I kept my grades up and I joined a lot of clubs and even took a couple of programming classes toward the end there. And I stopped watching TV for the most part. I watched a few shows but I kind of was more focused on leading by example. And I went to an engineering camp at Virginia Tech, C-Tech squared, over the summer and I, they introduced me to the NCWIT award for aspirations in computing, and I applied the week it was due, ’cause I wasn’t very confident that I would get it. But I did. And ever since then I’ve done so many things and met so many people that I would never have the opportunity to meet without NCWIT. And so I just feel really confident I didn’t have to look at the stereotypes to feel the way I did. And I also received an internship at the Entertainment Industries Council here at NCWIT. And they have this great program called SET awards. And they celebrate shows actually do get STEM portrayals right. So I had a lot of time to think about how the media can help get kids interested in STEM, and show them that it is possible to be good at it. So I came up with four suggestions mainly for this presentation. My first one is to make at least one main character a minority because kids do compare themselves to what they see on TV. And if they don’t see anyone like them, especially in STEM roles, then they don’t think they can do it. So I think that’s very important to have. Number two, make characters in STEM dress better. [laughing] Especially girls because I feel like a lot of girls are deterred from STEM because they don’t want to dress like the people. And people in STEM, I know the NCWIT girls dress fabulously, so it’s not true. And third, the quirks should not be distracting from the character’s likeability. Like Urkel here, they give too many STEM characters too many quirks. He had like five quirks. He dressed like that and he destroyed everything he touched, so that probably detracted people. And my fourth one, is to make people and environments realistic. They need to show kids actually working on STEM projects and not just being in silly, smart at programming. It takes time to get used to that subject. And I really want to reiterate that accurate depictions are really important because kids internalize what they see on TV, and it really shapes their perceptions about what they can do, and what their role in society is. So we need to make sure that we actually depict people studying and making, being smart at STEM especially, and normal and even a cool thing in school on TV. And to show kids working on STEM projects. And over time I do think that it will change how students view STEM. [applause]

Vimeo ID 70358914


NCWIT 2012 Summit – Flash Talk, Jinisha Patel

JEFFREY FORBES: I’m going to ask our first speaker to come up on the stage. So, Jinisha Patel is a winner of the NCWIT award for aspirations in computing and a student of computer science in engineering at Union County College. Her talk is programmed because you’re worth it.

JINISHA PATEL: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and thanks Jeff for the introduction. My talk is basically saying and breaking stereotypes that we all face. We are told that being a computer science and engineering major you’re supposed to be an introvert. For me I am not an introvert, I talk to a lot of people, I’m very bubbly. Growing up I was always playing with the boys. I only had two friends, girls, that were girls, and I used to play soccer, cricket, video games and everything. And my parents were like, “What is wrong with her? Why is she hanging out with all the boys?” You see all these girls hanging out doing their hair, braiding it and I’m over here kicking the soccer ball coming home, all the dirt on me. And then there were two computer science majors that came as tenants in our house and I saw this computer and I was like, hah, what is this? This is amazing. And I look at it, and I fell in love. I was at their house twenty-four seven. I never even went home. My mom would scream from across the playground. She’d be like, “Jinisha, come home.” And I would just pretend that I never even heard her. Just cause. And they were all just be wondering are you sure she’s a girl? My mom actually calls me her son because I’m very, I’m a very a tomboy and bubbly and everything that you wouldn’t expect me to be if you look at me. And people get surprised when I tell them I’m a computer science and engineering major, which I [crowd laughs] This is how I reacted when they were putting up my own computer that my mom bought because she wanted me to stay home at one point to come home and eat and stuff. So I was so excited, I was like come on man what is so taking so long? You gotta put this stuff up, I gotta go on this. And this is me [crowd laughs] This was exactly me this is how I looked. I was like, “Yes, yes, yes!” Finally I got my dream, it was my big, big dream that I had my lapped computer and I, I kinda learned computer by myself because my parents didn’t go to college. None of my parents are STEM people. And these were my friends, they were like, “Where is she? Gotta play soccer, man, where is she? I don’t see her.” Cause we had all these groups, little things set up and I never showed up and they’re like, “Wow, she dropped off the face of Earth.” This was my mom. Cause, this was when all because I didn’t work. And when you come from an Indian family, you are expected to help your mom and your sister. Yeah I didn’t really get all, off the computer, at all. I would be, my mom would be making chiputtees and I would be like, cause I didn’t really wanna stay. This was my reaction. Say hi to Ryan Gosling. I had to. It says, “I had a feeling about her.” Same with my first computer, I didn’t even. I knew that there was something in that thing that. And then I was introduced to the NCWIT community. This is actually one of the posts where the girls lost their iTouches that were given to them as winners. So I was, everybody was telling them, “Oh you should download this app. You could track your iTouch.” For me, this was my idea. Let’s just go all Sparta on them, be like, “This is NCWIT give me your iTouches back!” Cause of course we don’t want to, forget it we go all Sparta on them. It’s great you go to a community and you see people that are all like you and you don’t expect them and they accept you the way you are. This semester, my professor was, let me just say I went up during the first day I was like, “Hi I have a little Java knowledge, would you mind giving me some extra work? Maybe something that I don’t know. And he’s like, “Go sit down.” And I was like, this was my reaction. This was just like me, I never even attended a single lecture guys. I’m letting you know that. I was like, “Just give me an N.” The funniest thing I got an A. All the guys in the class took all my lab programs and I tutored them during my final exams. And they all got B pluses. During internship interviews this I went to an internship interview, 40 people. Five of them were girls, three of them were business majors and two of them were computer science majors. And this was me I was like, computer science major here. You need something? And this is what we were doing after that. When our internship was up like, we got this. We got this in the bag. We definitely got this in the bag. That’s with everybody, I met Marissa, she’s also a winner and I’ve never even met her. I’ve just talked to her. I’m working on a mobile app called Techicks, which is given an opportunity by NCWIT and this is what I think we are doing. At least, that’s what I think. That’s what my boss thinks. Hi Doug wherever you are. But there’s a little bit secret, we do this. We download turtles on the Google Plus thing, but I don’t think he knows yet, but we’re just kidding of course Doug, we work sometimes. But it’s great, I’ve never even met any of these girls before. I talk to them through phone, through video chat, and we’ve got so much closer. I’m just letting you know that program because you’re worth it. Because it’s very easy to be a easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl. But to be original and to be a easy, breezy, computer girl is hard. Just because you like barbies or you like soccer, or you like video games, doesn’t mean that you have to be that person. You could be anything that you want. Your passion is what really makes you, not your likes and dislikes. [crowd applause]

Vimeo ID 46997626


NCWIT 2012 Summit – Flash Talk, Robin Kelly

JEFFREY FORBES: Our next speaker is the Honorable Robin Kelly, former Illinois State Representative, and her talk is “Increasing Women’s Leadership: “The 2012 Project.”

ROBIN KELLY: Good afternoon. When you look at this screen you see women. They’re so popular you know them by their first names. Olympia, Hillary, Condi, and Nancy. But don’t be fooled. You know those women but there are not many women onboard to follow behind them. It’s really kind of sad. There’s not enough of us in leadership. And as you can see by that picture there’s not a lot of us in the workplace. And we need to do something about that. And we need to something about it soon because we need more women to make more decisions so the workplace looks like us. United States is rapidly falling behind. We are number 78 as you can see, behind countries you would not think that we would be behind as far as a percentage of women in Congress. Even though we are 51% of the population, and 56% of voters, there’s only 17% of us in Congress and the trend is going downward. There’s only 24% of us in the legislature, and 12% of us as governors. One six out of 50 women are governors in our United States. It’s a lot like your industry actually, because even though there are 56% of women in professional jobs in your industry, on 25% are IT folks, like 24% of women in the state legislature and there’s only 11% that are in executive positions, much like in the governor’s mansion. And why don’t women get ahead in tech and in politics? A big reason is family because no matter how liberated or progressive we think we are, we still carry the burden of family. And we used to joke in the state house, women need more wives and that would help us out a lot. [loud laughter] Also, we don’t have the same confidence. [loud applause] We don’t have the same confidence as men. I don’t know if it’s our DNA and/or cultural bias, and also we are not asked. But when we do step up we step up to take more responsibility and to solve problems and to be change agents and to really make a difference. And we step up because we’re asked. And that’s what I did. I stepped up 10 years ago because I was asked. But it was an opportune time because of remapping that gave me the opportunity to run and I actually beat a 10-year incumbent when I did run. But one of our strategies is The 2012 Project. That’s a project that I represent. With that project we hope to get more women running for office. Why? What do women bring to the table? And not the kitchen table. We solve problems. We use practical approaches. We don’t care who gets the credit or has the authority. We don’t need to be on top. We’re coalition builders and consensus builders. A big example with the Conference of Women Legislatures in Illinois, we’re very diverse. All women, but democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, upstate, downstate, but we got the job done. And we took the 30,000-foot view. We cared about everybody. We were inclusive. We didn’t leave anybody out. We didn’t care about just one group or another. We made sure that there was something for everyone. And that’s what women do as collaborators. Again, you see The 2012 Project, and again, I’m a product of that. I believe in that. I know we need more diverse voices in the legislature. That’s what’s gonna make a difference, not that we’re monolithic. We have different opinions too. But we not only need more women. We need more women that represent diverse fields. You’re voting on 4,000 votes some years and changing policy and we need to have experts in those fields and those fields that you see are underrepresented. When I served a bit ago we had one person representing IT, and actually that was a female. Our strategy in The 2012 Project is to find accomplished women that never thought about running. That was me. I never thought about it. I must admit five men came and asked me to run, but I found out a woman asked them to ask me. [loud laughter] They didn’t admit that at first. We have 70 faculty members that are former legislatures to help us do recruiting to connect us to organizations like yours where we hope we can inspire people to take us up on running for office. We’re also doing public education through television, articles, interviews, to really bring this issue out into the forefront because I don’t think people realize how few women there are. And if women don’t serve and they’re not at the table who loses? We all do. And what can your company’s do? They can educate. They can mentor. They can challenge women, let them know what the opportunities are. And they can create a culture that inspires women to step up to the plate. And also, you can be a role model yourself. You can be it if you can see it. But it’s hard to see if you never see it. It’s hard to be it if you never see it. So I congratulate those women and the women that have made it and we also need to reach back and help other women also. So just remember that you can be a role model yourself. Women don’t run ’cause they’re not asked. Consider yourself asked. If you decide it’s not for you, then please learn more about the issue. Please find other people to run and support them. Volunteer and contribute and again, go to The2012Project.US. Thanks. [loud applause and cheers]

Vimeo ID 47006211


NCWIT 2012 Summit – Flash Talk, Sylvia Martinez

JEFFREY FORBES: Next up is Sylvia Martinez the president of Generation YES who will be speaking about the needle in the haystack.

SYLVIA MARTINEZ: Well thank you. My name is Sylvia and I am a needle. And I know many of you are too. You’re the women in STEM, the ones who made it, we made it in spite of odds against us, we made it to good careers and we’re making a difference. [audience laughter] We made it in spite of discouragement, in spite of some bad advice and obstacles and skepticism, some overt discrimination, so we should be proud. And I know I’m proud, but there were people who helped me. I’m here, I’m an engineer because of an NSF summer camp, so thanks, Jeff. We owe it to those future needles to be role models and mentors, and some of us got lucky and had those experience, and we’re here today to share those experiences. But why are there needles? We know there’s lots of reasons, but I think one reason is the design of the K12 math and science curriculum. We’re weeding kids out, and not just girls. We’re weeding out all kinds of kids; kids who wanna do instead of listen, kids who don’t do well on tests, kids who think different, and kids who are different. These are the problem solvers of the future and we need them on our team. Now some kids we want to help, they’re difficult, they’re confrontational, they reject us, and they can just walk away from our help. In ed psych they call some of these kids oppositionally defiant, but there are a lot of kids who take a much easier route. They do just good enough to get by. Their bodies are present, but their minds are somewhere else. You might even call them oppositionally obedient. So, who’s left? Well, the good kids, the compliant ones. The ones who can sit still for a lecture and do well on tests. [audience laughter] But we end up with kids who can sometimes only ask one question: “Will this be on the test?”, instead of asking the big questions about the universe. And as mentors, we tend to look for those who are most like us, it’s human nature. But we have an obligation to seek all of them out, and to change the system that’s weeding them out. We have to fight for curriculum that’s not based on memorization and tests, where every kid does math and science, not just studies about it. Where there’s opportunities just to build and explore and tinker, like the kids who built this bridge, because that’s the measure of success, not tests or grades. It works, they’re standing on it. I was at the Maker’s Fair on San Monteo this weekend. There were whole families learning together. It was in the air, but a lot of those people have given up on school as a place where learning happens, and that’s just sad. And I am not arguing for dumbing down math or science standards, just the opposite. I think we have to raise our game and raise our expectations, than just hoping we can rescue a few needles out of the haystack, of K12 education. So, let me use a darker metaphor. We all know the story of the Titanic. A terrible tragedy. Poor design, bad luck, pride. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. But you know what? A few people made it to New York. But, no one claims that we should be building more Titanics, and accept that a lot of the passengers will be at risk on their trip, but in education we accept that argument. We are counting on the educational equipment of better life boats, of doing more lifeboat drills, and teaching raft hanging-on techniques. [light audience laughter] That sounds crazy, but we can’t build a better educated America by counting on needles in a haystack, or luck, or survivors. And to do this, we have to fix this. We have to stop making tiny tweaks in math and science curriculum. We have to teach computing and engineering from this century, from kindergarten on. And we have to call out politicians who are blaming teachers for this problem. We have to change a system that’s based on textbooks and tests, even though they have money and power. We know this system is failing kids. We know our students are losing interest, year after year, the longer they stay in the system. So we have to work with all kids, whether they remind us of ourselves or not, and we have to change the system, both and. Send more lifeboats? Absolutely. Better life boats? Yes. But it’s not enough, rescuing a few needles is not enough. So can we do it? Can we change curriculum, assessment, pedagogy, tradition, culture? Well, yes. We have to. Education is a big ship. It has a lot of inertia, and yes it sounds impossible, and yes it must be done. But, I think we, and I’m looking at you, are just the right people to do it, because we are the needles in the haystack. Thank you very much. [audience applause]

Vimeo ID 47006210