KatysBlog

My big job today is to ship Notable Women in Computing playing card sets to the (living) honorees who did not pick up their cards at the Hopper Conference (GHC14). Professor Susan Rodger (Duke University) and I have been collecting addresses – mostly directly from the honorees. We still do not have them all but I plan to ship about thirty out today. Since Jessica had to do such a quick first and second printing to support demand at GHC14, we have to add stickers by hand to the boxes – thanking the sponsors Duke University Computer Science and Everwise. I picked up the stickers yesterday.  My next step this morning is to buy shipping materials…

Image Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson

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

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.

If you are at GHC14 – check out our poster:

Image Copyright 2014 by Susan Rodger