Girls In Tech

Last week wrapped up the Grace Hopper Celebration Women in Computing 2011 in Portland, Oregon. 3000 attendees (over 140 companies, 235 academics representation and closed to 90% women attendees) from all over the world flocked to attend this 4 days conference. What if, is the topic of the conference – It is about creating the next generation to be the leader in STEM/Tech (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Telle Whitney opened the conference by introducing an initiative by Anita Borg/Grace Hooper “TechWomen” change agent scholars: 6 women mentees (Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Egypt) selected as up-and-coming leaders who will advance in women’s participation in technology and help support more women in their hometown and expand STEM education. TechWomen pairs technical women in the greater San Francisco Bay Area with their counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa for a professional mentorship and exchange program at leading technology companies.

Keynote speaker, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook gave a career advice for any young woman who wants to move up the ladder in the career of technology:

1. Believe in yourself
2. Dream big
3. Make your partner a real partner
4. Don’t’ leave just yet
5. Start talking about this

The conference sessions range from career, academic, technical, theme and industry track. With Saturday dedicated for an open source day: Codeathon for humanity.

Grace Hopper Aspirations computing by NCWIT took place on Thursday night. More than 1200 applicants applied for and top 30 young women were chosen to attend this conference. The Aspirations award is the catalyst that propels young women into studying computer science in college and ultimately pursuing a career in computing and information technology. Event sponsored by Microsoft, Intel, viawest, Lewis and Clark, puppetlabs and 24Notion

Career fair and exhibitors from Google, yahoo, Microsoft, NSA, Deutsch bank, Lockheed martin, Amex, Intel, Pixar, Facebook, Twitter and hundred others gathered to recruit the brightest STEM young leader to lead their company. (Did you know that STEM jobs paid 20% more than regular career?).

Leaving the conference energized and excited that at Girls in Tech Mentorship Program, we are here to support and developed the next generation to raise them up the top. So, what are you waiting for? Get into it!

Follow me @MsSonicFlare

Tags: 24notion, engineering, girls in tech portland, GIT Mentorship, gitpdx, grace hopper celebration, Ivo Lukas, mathematics, mentorship, mssonicflare, Science, sheryl sandberg, STEM, technology, women in computing
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Events, Girls In Tech, GIT Mentorship, Portland | No Comments »

What we planned to do: publicize an event to girls in Silicon Valley, an iPhone app store competition in which they, grouped into teams, were to design and storyboard a brand new iPhone app.  They would have to think through a quick and dirty business plan and pitch it in 60 seconds. And the winners would take home brand new iPod Touches!

We hoped that by hosting a fun, enticing, and engaging competition, we could show the participating girls that careers in engineering and science weren’t limited to the stereotypical images of pocker protectors and protractors we see on TV.

What we did do: exactly that, and more.

As I walked around the room while the girls and their mentors were chattering excitedly about their ideas, I knew we had done it– we had clusters of girls at each table from all different schools in Silicon Valley, including a group of girls who traveled to Cupertino all the way from San Francisco that had already completed high school but were now participating in a program which prepares them for particular trades that require a certification program or two year degree. Everybody was talking to each other freely, shooting off ideas with confidence and finesse. Nobody cared that the tables were mixed up with girls of different ages (14-17) or that they hadn’t ever met before. Likewise they were interacting with each mentor with enthusiasm and respect. These mentors were women who had technical and engineering backgrounds who worked at Apple, Virgin America, and Admob and volunteered their time as resources for the inspiration and guidance of this group of girls during the competition. And everyone had a blast!

The feedback from the post-event survey was wonderfully positive. The girls said things like:

“I learned that there is a lot more to engineering than sitting behind a computer and [that] science and math really help.” “”I thought the mentors were cool and had a lot of variety of careers and I learned that a positive team-work attitude was cool.” “I learned that engineering is an option for girls and that I wouldn’t be alone.”

Ultimately, the winning app, titled “Stop, Shop and Go!” had most of the elements of a real iPhone app people clamor to use on a daily basis– the melding of geographic data, coupon codes, and (duh!) a shopping guide. All of the apps that were dreamt up that day were feasible– now if we could only create them all! The presentations, while limited to 60 seconds, were vivid, engaging, amusing, and fearless. These girls rocked it.

I would say, without hesitation, that the Girls in Tech mentorshorship debut was a resounding success. I would also say, this raises the bar so high on what’s still to come!

In the spring, we’re taking the involvement to a whole new level. We are partnering with Iridescent again to put on the Technovation Challenge 2010! This time, it won’t be one evening, but several months of teamwork, leadership, and engineering. The girls will learn, with the guidance of professional women in the tech industry, how to design and program cool mobile apps using App Inventor for Android, a new programming language developed by Google. Once created, these apps will be presented to a real team of venture capitalists for prizes, feedback, and the chance to be recruited into summer internships at some of the coolest local startups. Don’t you wish you were still in high school?

We can’t make this level of awesomeness happen, however, without help. If you are a female professional in the Silicon  Valley area, I hope that you will think about joining us for our program in February.  We will be working with the students twice a week for 8 weeks (Tuesdays and Thursdays 5pm – 7pm beginning on February 23rd).  The girls and their mentors (looking at you!…hopefully) will work in teams to learn how to program mobile apps for Android and they will develop working prototypes.  The teams will also get coaching from VCs and entrepreneurs on writing a business plan for their app ideas.  We are building an exciting team of VCs, entrepreneurs, and speakers that will focus on teaching various parts of the program, so it promises to be a great learning experience for students and mentors alike.  If you have ever done any kind of programming before or are interested in learning how to program in this new language, the girls would greatly benefit from working with you, so please consider joining.

We even had a fellow GIT pro photographer hook it up! Thanks Elizabeth McGinnis!

One of the things that we learned from our experience on Friday is that it works much better to have two mentors per team, since mentors often have other commitments and may have to step out from time to time.  So if you’re interested in mentoring in the Spring, but are not sure if you can make it to every meeting, let us know and we can either pair you up with another mentor or you can sign up with a friend!

Thanks E McG for capturing these ladies' true essence!

Girls in Tech and Iridescent made something really cool happen for a group of enthusiastic girls this past Friday. We want to do it again, on a much bigger and hopefully even more impacting scale. Will you help us?

Tags: Android, app development, app inventor for android, apple, business pitch challenge, business plan competition, challenge, competition, engineering, Girls in Tech Silicon Valley, Google, high school girls, iridescent, mentorship, pitch competition, Silicon Valley, STEM subjects, venture capital, women in technology
Posted in Girls In Tech | 5 Comments »

In a world with so few female engineers, it takes the voice of a risk taker, a believer, someone who is so passionate about what they do, to make a strong impact amongst the community around them. Leah Culver exemplified such amazing will power, knowledge and candidness during the Girls in Tech “Deciphering the Code” session last night that she left several attendees in awe, with inspiration to start their own companies and develop certain skills that most women wouldn’t even dream of investing time in this far into their careers.

Personally, I think Leah represents the core of what Girls in Tech promotes – Entrepreneurialism, Education, and Empowerment. She has taken risks since day one – becoming a CS major at the University of Minnesota, to jumping head first into a career in development in Silicon Valley, to becoming a co-founder of one of the hottest start-ups, to-date – Pownce, to working as a lead engineer at one of the most widely used blog platforms – SixApart. She continues to impress me . . .

Not in the way you would think, however. I like being around Leah, because in one phrase – “She Keeps it Real.” She doesn’t sugar coat her experiences, she doesn’t try to make friends, she is true to herself by sporting flipflops, a hoodie, jeans and of course her infamous bug-eye glasses that are hip in all the right ways. She’s outspoken, funny, smart and edgy. One of her main pet peeves is when people openly talk about her as being “not smart.” She says that is the one thing that truly  hurts her, not because she in fact is the smartest programmer out there, it’s because she is truly passionate and loves what she does – she wants to grow, get better and continue on a path to excelling in her career.

A few key points that resonated for me during her presentation are:

• Take risks
• Don’t be afraid to fail
• Become an entrepreneur. It’s fun
• Starting a company is just as extreme as not starting a company
• Surround yourself with the right people 
• Ask for that co-founder title
  
• Stay in Silicon Valley
• Check out OAuth
• Don’t speak at events that aren’t interesting to you
• Public relations is important
• Competition is good
• The folks at Twitter are really nice
• Don’t let the “old boys network” get you down
• “Get a tattoo” (quoted by Leah)

We’re huge fans of Leah and will continue to track her achievements, new start-ups and her appearances on TV shows, magazine covers and vlogs.

Tags: engineering, girls in tech, Leah Culver, Programmer, San Francisco, University of Minnesota
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In my last post, I talked about a nightmarish experience of outsourcing the design work for HowLegit? Recovering (quickly) from this experience, I went on a hunt for my engineering team with two things in mind : I would go on referrals primarily, and I would prefer to work with a legitimate company over an individual. Too risky to have someone build your code and then disappear all of a sudden. I posted on Rent-A-Coder and Elance, two sites which allow vendors from all over the world to bid on your project, potentially allowing for great cost savings.  When you are flooded with 10-20 bids as I was, it can be a daunting task to decide on the right one. In the evaluation process, it is as important to assess communication ability and style, as technical skill, especially if you are thinking about working with developing nations like India and China. Also pay attention to the vendor ratings that will give you a sense of customer satisfaction. I ended up going with a firm based out of China, whose CEO worked out of Silicon Valley and made customer service a priority. I had my engineer adviser quiz his engineering team, and I was comfortable with the fact that they were dedicated to getting the work done and that customer satisfaction was very important because they were just starting out and were looking for referrals. (Email me for their name – happy to refer you to them, as I have been very happy and continue to work with them on Phase 2 of the work.)

In the contract phase of outsourcing to a partner, I would say “scope creep” is the biggest concern, in that when you delineate the vendor’s responsibility, make sure to state things you think they will need to take on, in addition to things you know they will. Although this may have the potential to drive up your costs at the start, it will more likely prevent a renegotiation in which the vendor believes that you have underestimated the work and will charge you more going forward. It is also very important that you understand the resourcing: Who will be your project manager? Engineer? QA? UI?  Are you paying lump sum for a combination of these services or will you be billed hourly for each group that is involved. For example, although I had my designs created by another vendor (see my last post, Outsourcing: Lessons Learned Part I , )turns out I still needed UI assistance in refining the pages, building out ones that were incomplete, and converting the whole lot to html (an absolute essential final deliverable for any UI designer). So I ended up buying a combination of engineering services (project manager, engineer, QA) on a monthly basis, and a one-time UI fee for the initial development of the pages.

When dealing with non-English speaking countries like China, make sure you are not paying too much of a premium for English speakers, as you can find them dime a dozen in India and Eastern Europe. It may just take you a little longer to sift through all your options. It is also worthwhile to agree on a “trial period” of a small piece of the project so that you can evalute the technical ablity and communication style. In an outsourced world, not being in the same room or city as your partner makes it much harder to know what’s really going on. Insist on documentation of everything in the form of daily or weekly work reports, bug tracking lists, project plans, etc. You’ll be glad you did.

A final word to the wise on special “social networking” engineering such as Iphone and Facebok apps. As the technology and information around these evolve every day, your regular engineering shop may not have the expertise to develop these, which means that you either have to spend a lot of time teaching your developers how to build one, or you may need to outsource to a specialist. (Silicon Valley is full of them). Before you do that though, make sure you have done your cost-benefit analysis – some platforms are not very developer-friendly, and unless you have something truly outstanding, it may get lost in the sea of others trying to do the same thing as you.

Next Time: Getting Started: Building the Site

Kaamna Dhawan had a colorful career in corporate America before realizing that the intersection of technology and human interaction is where her passions lie. And no one makes human interaction as fascinating as celebrities do! As the founder and CEO of HowLegit.com, she brings in experience from running 4 successful social networks and a continuing restlessness for learning and entrepreneurship. Kaamna is now seven months pregnant, and just moved across the world to Sydney, Australia, proving that technology has truly removed all barriers against productivity and connectivity. She misses the Bay Area and her interactions with Girls in Tech and secretly stalks the organization through the website and Facebook!

Tags: engineering, entrepreneurship, howlegit?, outsourcing
Posted in San Francisco | No Comments »