Category Archives: News & Reviews

Civic Ironwork Playing Cards

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I am blessed with a smart, creative, and loving daughter! Jessica and I have been working for months with Dr. Susan Rodger of Duke University on our Notable Women in Computing poster and card decks for the Hopper Conference (GHC14). Our success there lead to the equally-successful Notable Women in Computing Card Deck Kickstarter project – already funded at over 200%, with three weeks to go! In between all of this work, Jessica quietly created and shipped me my own deck of cards as a birthday present. She took photos from my Civic Ironwork – Manhole Covers collection and made a lovely set with this text on the back:

  • I am interested in the design and age of signs and marks under foot in a city.
  • I have recently collected images of manhole covers from Marrakech, Morocco to Portland, Oregon.
  • I am delighted by the variety and personality expressed in this most-humble of civic street elements.

What a wonderful gift! What an amazing daughter!  Thank you thank you thank you!

Image copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Kickstarter Open: “Notable Women in Computing Card Deck”

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Our Kickstarter crowd funding request to support the second edition of the “Notable Women in Computing Card Deck” is now open!

Women have been leaders in computing from the start, but not enough of our contributions are remembered.

Keep our history.

Help fund a “Notable Women in Computing Card Deck” featuring 54 remarkable women in computer science. Give a deck to a cousin who’s not sure if girls can be engineers. Bring it to your poker night to make a point. Learn more about the history and future of women in computer science. By becoming a Backer, you help us bring the cost of producing these decks from $18/deck to $10/deck and ship decks to educators who can’t afford them.

This Kickstarter is to fund a printing of the second edition. We’re distributing the first edition at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) right now and want to incorporate our lessons-learned in the second edition.

Professor Susan Rodger, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I welcome your support.

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If you are at GHC14 – check out our poster:

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Image Copyright 2014 by Susan Rodger

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“Notable Women in Computing” Kickstarter – Coming Soon!

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Today, we submitted the “Notable Women in Computing Card Deck” to Kickstarter for review.  Professor Susan Rodger, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I hope that we get a quick Kickstarter approval and can announce the campaign for the second “Notable Women in Computing” card edition at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) this week.  Here is a video of my charming daughter telling all about the crowd sourcing project: Notable Women in Computing Card Deck – Kickstarter.  The image above is how the hard-working Jessica re-formatted the GHC14 poster for more-general Kickstarter distribution.

This project and card set is associated with the long-term “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing” project.  We encourage you to use this information to write or improve Wikipedia pages – especially creating new pages about remarkable women who have none! The detailed card listing is in my 1 October 2014 blog entry.  Duke University and Everwise are sponsors.

Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Two TechWomen at Everwise!

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Today Everwise is pleased and honored to host an additional TechWomen Emerging Leader! Mai Temraz (of Palestine) has joined Seham Jaafreh (of Jordan) working at Everwise in San Francisco this month. CEO and Founder Mike Bergelson heard about Mai’s original mentor becoming very ill and immediately offered to host a second TechWomen mentoring program participant.  The women of Everwise have welcomed our two new ladies. Everwise is a small company with a big heart! Seham and Mai are getting settled and starting on their professional projects today.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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TechWomen Opening Day 2014!

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Yesterday was the TechWomen 2014 opening event for participants from 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East (plus the USA!) – generously hosted by Juniper Networks again in Sunnyvale, California. During the next five weeks, I will be the Professional Mentor for Seham Jaafreh from Jordan – working together at Everwise In San Francisco. Lucy Keoni will also be working with Seham as her Cultural Mentor.

Assistant US Secretary of State Evan Ryan made the welcome announcement that the countries included in TechWomen 2015 will be extended to South Central Asia!

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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TechWomen Potluck

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This afternoon, long-time TechWomen mentor and supporter Shannon McElyea generously hosted a potluck garden party for mentors and STEM Emerging Leaders from the Middle East and Africa. The TechWomen ELs have been in America just a few days – going on tours and discussing their plans in workshops. This was one of their first purely social events – and for many, their first-ever potluck. The American custom of building a meal around whatever food each person wants to contribute took some explaining but we all had a good time.

During this next month, I will be the Professional Mentor for Seham Jaafreh from Jordan – working together at Everwise. Everwise has already posted a blog post welcoming the TechWomen – as has the US State Department. Lucy Keoni will be working with Seham and me as Seham’s Cultural Mentor. The three of us were delighted to meet today and are enjoying planning many activities and visits in the San Francisco Bay Area.

John and I drove four lovely and lively Emerging Leaders from Zimbabwe back to their hotel after the party.

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Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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Poster Done: “Notable Women in Computing”

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Professor Susan Rodger, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I created the “Notable Women in Computing” Poster and Playing Cards for delivery at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing (aka GHC14) next week. Jessica just finished designing the poster above – showing all 54 of the playing cards.

The poster text says:

Keep our history: Women have been leaders in computing from the start but not enough of our contributions are remembered. Keep our history by writing a Wikipedia page for a notable woman in computing (draw from our list of 300+). Get tips on writing a great page, get a copy of this deck, and learn more about this project at Bit.ly/NotableW.

This project and card set is associated with the long-term “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing”project.  We encourage you to use this information to write or improve Wikipedia pages – especially creating new pages about remarkable women who have none! The detailed card listing is in my 1 October 2014 blog entry.

Duke University and Everwise are sponsors. Playing Cards will be for sale $6/deck (our cost) at the GHC14 Duke University table – one deck per person!

The Notable Women in Computer Science project is a labor of love for the women behind it, which is why we are licensing the card deck under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 U.S. License. We have done a number of things to ensure this deck only helps, and does not hurt, women in computing. Our efforts included: using public domain images, seeking individual permission for images, seeking to represent the reality of diversity of women in computing, and seeking input on the project from women leaders in technology.

If you have a concern (don’t like the public domain photo we found of you, don’t think the photo you took can be licensed in the way we did, decided you did not want to be included, want to provide a better photo or more correct text) we want to know and we will do our best to help you. Please contact Katy Dickinson (katy dot dickinson at gmail dot com) with questions.

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