Girls In Tech

Date/Time:  Wednesday November 2, 5:30-8:00pm

Location:  Andreessen Horowitz, 2865 Sand Hill Road Menlo Park CA

Panelists

Angela Benton, Founder/CEO at Cued Labs / CEO Black Web Media

Freada Kapor Klein, Founder Level Playing Field Institute

Marissa Mayer, VP Local / Geo at Google

Padmasree Warrior, CTO Cisco

Sandy Jen, CTO Meebo

Vivek Wadhwa, Columnist Washington Post

Tags: Adriana Gascoigne, Andreesen Horowitz, girls in tech, iridescent, mentorship, venture capital, women in tech
Posted in All Chapters, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

How powerful is a tweet?

Last December at Vator Splash NY Competition where JumpThru founder Deborah Jackson served as a judge for the event, she met the executive director of Iridescent, a non-profit that provides STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education for underserved and underrepresented youth. On the spot, she helped Iridescent connect with like-minded organizations such as Girl Develop It and Women 2.0. She also introduced the non-profit to Heart & Soul Charitable Fund that is now going to fund Iridescent.

Deborah thought she had done her part in making connections for Iridescent. Little did she think that one of her tweets would have an impact as powerful as a personal introduction.

Fast forward to this week, when she received a thank you email from the executive director of Iridescent. The executive director wrote that, thanks to Deborah’s tweet about Girl Approved founder Heidi Dangelmaier, Iridescent learned about Girl Approved, an organization focused on girl empowerment through innovative product development. In fact, the executive director reached out to Heidi who agreed to be one of the keynote speakers at Technovation Challenge Pitch Night on May 9th at AOL Ventures in NYC.

Here is more detail on Technovation Challenge Pitch Night:

“The Technovation Challenge program was founded in 2009 by Anuranjita Tewary, who wanted to offer young women the experience of participating in a “start-up company” and understand what it takes to be a high-tech entrepreneur. The pilot program was run in the spring of 2010, with 45 girls and 25 mentors from all over Silicon Valley. The Technovation Challenge has now expanded to New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mountain View and Berkeley, CA, supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). View our current programs here“

Girls in Tech was highly involved with the first Technovation Challenge, from inception to Pitch Night, in the Bay Area in December 2009.

So, a tweet, as Deborah found out, can be quite powerful. Particularly when sharing connections and promoting collaboration among an increasingly interconnected community of “tweeps” passionate about female entrepreneurship, technology, and education.

Keep on tweeting!

This post of was originally posted on JumpThru’s tumblr blog.

Tags: entrepreneurship, Girl_Approved, Girl_Develop_It, iridescent, JumpThru, networking, New York City, social media, social networking, Technovation_Challenge, tweet, twitter, women in technology
Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech, New York | No Comments »

Time and again, studies reveal lower percentages of women in technical domain. There is a lot of on-going effort around the world to influence women to launch their careers in some technical field in order to bridge the gap. This decades-old question still lingering around indicates that the traditional approach to lure women into technical field is not effective and, emphasize the need for a new approach altogether.

Christine recently posted “AAUW Releases Report: “Why So Few? Women in Science, Tech, Engineering and Mathematics” at Girls in Tech blog. AAUW’s report highlights how ‘social belief system and learning environment’ affects initial mindset of the young girls.

I vividly remember during high-school, we were a class with 100 (approx) girls and, of these only 10% decided to choose a career in engineering, and relatively small percentage (4%) successfully sought a technical career. Looking back in time, and discussing this topic with a few girls who abandoned their goals midway, I figured that they were not comfortable in choosing a career in a field where women would be scarce, but most importantly that, they had some sort of inherent fear. Many girls doubted whether they could do well at math or physics, and did not wish to pursue the fundamental coursework required as basis for an advance degree in technical a field for example, engineering.

Along with positive encouragement at home and school (as AAUW report suggests, and I blindly second), there is profound need for an early exposure to technology as well. Most students have their first ‘real’ rendezvous during undergrad or graduate coursework. But, isn’t this kind of late, when most of us are already committed to our fields of specialization? I strongly feel that such opportunities of getting to taste technology should come at an earlier stage, which I prefer to call career forming age of students (junior-high school to high school), when almost all of us are faced with the question – “What do you aspire to be?”

A hands-on experience will allow these young minds make a better decision, and definitely break the ice. Those who are discomforted by the need to take basic courses like math, physics, chemistry or computers, will get a chance to see all of these in action, and hopefully get inspired and, overcome the fear factor!
Girls in Technology’s Mentorship Program shook hands with Iridiscent and launched Technovation Challenge 2010, aimed at providing a unique opportunity to high-school girls to learn directly from distinguished female entrepreneurs and professionals and get inspired! The success of this event underscores the importance of this cause.

As Managing Director of Minneapolis Chapter, I vow to bring this effort to state of Minnesota soon, and request others to spread the word. The desire to pursue a career in technological field will definitely grow deeper if winded at the right time. And, we will see professional demographics of women in technology change.

Tags: AAUW Report "Why So Few? Women in Science, education, Engineering and Mathematics", entrepreneur, girls in tech, iridescent, mentorship, Minneapolis Chapter, tech, technology, Technovation Challenge 2010, women in tech
Posted in All Chapters, GIT Mentorship, Minneapolis | 4 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 »