Girls In Tech

This blog on Girls in Tech Community Education and Programming Initiatives, with an eye to a crowd-sourced curricula, was graciously co-authored by Amy Vernon with edits by Theresa Lee.

Fast Facts:

• The above is a snapshot I took of a photo on the wall at IBM HQ, while at a NY PHP meetup in NYC, labeled Women Systems Service Professionals Class, 1935.
• Our friends at the McKinsey Quarterly (Rethinking how companies address social issues) discover: To Improve Business in the Developing World, Educate Women, at Harvard Business Review.
• DARPA announces the lack of women and minorities in technology is a national security issue, Wired Magazine.

Community and Education are One:
We are pleased to announce an initiative to address the pressing need for women’s advancement in technological fields. Using its network of members, partners and relationships, GIT is launching a series of free or affordable programming courses. The courses are crowd-sourced and designed by the programming and technology professional community.

Girls in Tech NYC will celebrate this initiative and pilot this Spring with a conference/party in New York City, when we will kick off a Girls in Tech partnership with DaniWeb.com, the largest C++ community and woman-founded programming forum of countless programming language communities online. And, once again, Bootup will offer its ingenuity and experience to the effort, rallying the user group community in the New York City area. Many more partners to come.

Evolve and Celebrate:

Big thanks go out to Dani Horowitz of DaniWeb.com for her spirit and drive. And thanks, too, to Hans Zaunere of Bootup and NY PHP for his incredible initiative and support, and to Sara Chipps (Girl Developer), our pioneer instructor in the space. They not only have experience teaching courses in the space, but also more importantly have the mindset open to a crowd-sourced curriculum. Joanna Wen and many more are expected to join them soon!

As industries evolve, so too will all technology skill sets, and women have typically lacked educational resources targeted to their mindset. The first and most important barrier for women is having a community to support and respond to their needs and to include them in the curriculum. As noted by education pioneer, actress and Math genius Danica McKellar in her conversations with us and through her best selling books “Math Doesn’t Suck” and “Kiss my Math” this barrier exists at the middle school level. Girls in Tech has striven to highlight initiatives via our national and local events, such as: the GIT mentorship program hosted at Apple HQ (Education) and Microsoft, GIT University and continues to innovate in the space through many digital avenues.

More Community:

In addition to offering a stepped process to creating a practical educational curriculum (informal Question and Answer sessions, constant feedback via surveys, engaged teachers, inspiring guest speaker input, and some of the most tested curricula from our corporate and community partners), Girls in Tech would like move the bar for all people who would like to be involved with technology. Tech should be accessible! We have discussed teaming up with other co-ed technology events groups committed to addressing this need in a social way, with a positive and inclusive mindset.

Hallmarks of these classes include offering students consistent feedback, curriculum developed by leaders in the programming community and guest speakers who are programmers and authors, as well as featuring real-world projects designed to reflect women’s strengths, vision, and both our enterprising and philanthropic nature, while focusing on getting them online and programming their own blogs and websites. More advanced courses also will be available, for those who know the basics but need to take their skills to the next level.

Technology and Education Overview:

Over the past many months, Girls in Tech has fielded interest from some of the largest tech companies about their participation in the program and curriculum. Companies such as Microsoft have extremely advanced learning communities, and Google (Education)and IBM (Academic Initiative) foster innovative and crowd-sourced education. Meanwhile countless others have offered their support and interest. Numerous education experts at  Social Media Week in NYC have further been supportive of our efforts. Special thanks to Asli Bilgin at Microsoft for her inspiring discussions on the way women build (WomenBuild) at our board meetings last year. Thanks to Tony Bacigalupo and Sanford Dickert at New Work City for offering your encouragement and partnership. Meeting with FogCreek Software was particularly productive. New York PHP User Community launches its introductory web seminars this month. Local programming communities,companies and corporate partners have signed on as advisers and partners. More soon.

Girls In Tech believes the biggest barrier to women’s advancement in the technological sphere has been the lack of a network of positive community support, and that’s precisely what GIT has aimed to provide since its inception. The project aligns with our belief in education and how social networks and communities support it, as well as our belief in pulling together the collective wisdom of women already successful in the field.

April Q&A Kick-Offs:

Stay tuned for our Q&A classes at the Downtown Alliance’s Hive at 55 starting this April. Daria Siegel and Brian DiFeo, at the Hive at 55 have graciously offered their space to GIT NYC and Bootup, as well as many other value-focused community groups, to encourage ground-breaking training.

April 02, 2010 Update:

Please visit http://techtoeducate.eventbrite.com or http://girlsintechnyc.com for updates as they occur on the pilot of this program.