Tag Archives: Jessica

August 8, 2015 · 12:00 pm

TechWomen 2015, Mentoring Standard, Notable Technical Women, Wikipedia

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TechWomen 2015:  The TechWomen 2015 year has started! Professional and Cultural mentors for the 99 Emerging Leaders from 19 countries who will participate in the five-week program are being notified of acceptances. I have been honored to be selected as a Cultural Mentor for the South Bay Area in the Arts & Culture group. I am looking forward to working with Emerging Leaders and other mentors in the Silicon Valley. Since 2011, 156 women from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe have participated. The 2015 TechWomen program will expand to include women from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

This year, my company Mentoring Standard will be offering training and certification for TechWomen mentors. Our Team is now developing those materials. We are very much looking forward to supporting this outstanding program of citizen diplomacy by the US Department of State – Bureau of Educational Cultural Affairs.

Notable Technical Women: The Notable Technical Women project by Jessica Dickinson Goodman (California Department of Justice), Dr. Susan Rodger (Duke University), and me is also thriving: Jessica just placed a big re-order of the Notable Women in Computing card decks and posters, and the TechWomen cards and posters continue to sell steadily. TechWomen Director Arezoo Miot is pictured above with the TechWomen poster in her Institute of International Education office in San Francisco.

Want to write for Wikipedia? We welcome corrections and additions to information on the Notable Technical Women materials. Since the first printing in November 2014, eight honorees have had new Wikipedia biographies written (or we found pages about them): Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza, Laurie Hendren, Kathleen McKeown, Betty Snyder (aka Betty Holberton), Valerie Taylor, Marlyn Wescoff (aka Marilyn Meltzer), Linda Petzold, and Lixia Zhang. There are only six Notable Technical Women honorees left (out of the 54 honorees) who need biographies written: Anuradha Annaswamy, Chieko Asakawa, Qiheng Hu, Yuqing Gao, Lila Ibrahim, and Sophie Vandebroek. We update the cards as possible between printings.

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IMG_7833 Susan, Jessica, and Katy – June 2015

Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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August 1, 2015 · 10:30 pm

San Juan Islands, Washington State

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We are just driving home from a week with family in the San Juan Islands at the north end of the State of Washington, just below Canada. This is about a thousand miles driving each way from our home in San Jose, California! All along the way, we saw the looming background presence of some of the largest California-Oregon-Washington mountains: Shasta, Baker, Rainier – part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean.

As this was our first visit to the islands, we also saw many of the tourist sights: Krystal Acres Alpaca Farm, Pelindaba Lavender, whale watching with San Juan Excursions, Orcas Island Pottery, the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Lime Kiln Point State Park, etc. There were a great variety of wild and tame animals along the way: foxes, orcas, a great horned owl, deer, a camel, a black snake, salmon, seagulls, harbor seals and dolphins, sea anemones and barnacles, bald eagles, turkey vultures, quail, honey bees and bumble bees, raccoons and alpacas – and of course, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, cats and dogs. We enjoyed two Shakespeare performances: Much Ado About Nothing (at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR), and Cymbeline (at Island Stage Left, Roche Harbor, WA). A delightful trip!

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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July 8, 2015 · 10:55 am

Become a Mentor with TechWomen!

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The Mentor Application for the 2015 TechWomen is now open!

I have been working with the TechWomen program since 2010 and I highly recommend it as a life-changing and exceptionally rewarding professional and personal experience!  These photos are of TechWomen mentees and friends from Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Algeria – some of the most impressive and capable women I know!

Apply by July 19th for priority consideration.

Professional Mentor Application

Eligibility Requirements

Professional Mentor applicants must be

  • Women working in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Able to host an Emerging Leader at their company’s site.
  • Able to coach the Emerging Leader on the project four days per week for four weeks in October 2015.

Learn more about the Professional Mentor role.

Cultural Mentor Application

Eligibility Requirements

Cultural Mentors applicants must be

  • Women living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Willing to coordinate within a group to foster relationships and plan activities of interest to their respective Emerging Leaders.
  • Excited about serving as a cultural ambassador and showcasing all the Bay Area has to offer.
  • Willing to help Emerging Leaders navigate logistical challenges as they settle into life in the Bay Area.

Learn more about the Cultural Mentor role.

TechWomen Mission

The mission of TechWomen is to empower, connect, and support the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by providing them access and opportunity to advance their careers, pursue their dreams, and become role models for women and girls in their communities.

How TechWomen Does It

TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from Africa and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program. TechWomen provides participants access to networks, resources, and knowledge to empower them to reach their full potential.

During the five-week program, participants engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, participate in professional development workshops and networking events, and travel to Washington, D.C. for targeted meetings and special events to conclude the program.

Over the past three years, 156 women from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe have participated in TechWomen. The 2015 program will expand to include women from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Mentoring Across the World

The TechWomen experience doesn’t end in California or Washington, D.C. After the program, Emerging Leaders and Mentors have the opportunity to reconnect during delegation trips to program countries in Africa and the Middle East. Programming focuses on expanding networks of women in the STEM fields, creating and strengthening partnerships, encouraging girls to pursue STEM careers, and ensuring the sustainability of Mentor-Emerging Leader relationships.

TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). TechWomen, launched in 2011, supports the United States’ global commitment toward advancing the rights and participation of women and girls around the world by enabling them to reach their full potential in the tech industry.

TechWomen is managed by the Center for Women’s Leadership Initiatives (WLI) at the Institute of International Education ® (IIE).

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Images Copyright Katy Dickinson 2012-2015

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June 17, 2015 · 4:35 pm

3 Realizations About Seattle

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Last week, I stayed with my wonderful daughter Jessica and son-in-law Matthew while visiting Seattle, Washington, to speak on “History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing” at Microsoft Research. I was last in Seattle on New Year’s Eve 1999, when John and group of friends rented the Virginia City and another private rail car for a three day celebration trip from San Jose, California. In 1999, we saw very little of the city, so this was my first real tour. Jessica generously drove me into the Cascade Range the first day (where we walked a tiny part of the Pacific Crest Trail), and we walked around the city proper after that.

I gained three realizations about Seattle:

  1. Although it is 54 miles from Seattle, I learned how big and present Mount Ranier is during this trip. Even on the hottest day, the huge snow-clad volcano looms at the ends of long streets and above buildings.
  2. Another presence I did not expect was the many seagulls. We saw them at the port but they also flocked on rooftops at sundown to eat the rising bugs.
  3. I am a big fan of civic ironwork and Seattle offers a remarkable selection for the connoisseur of this humble art form.

I learned that there is more to Seattle than coffee and software!

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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June 16, 2015 · 6:52 pm

History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing

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Last week, Dr. Telle Whitney (CEO and President, Anita Borg Institute), Dr. Susan Rodger (Professor of the Practice in the Computer Science Department at Duke University) and I gave talks on the “History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing” – as part of the Microsoft Research Gender Diversity Lecture Series, in Redmond, Washington. We were joined at the event by Jody Mahoney (of ABI, who lives in San Francisco) and my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, (who lives in Seattle). We were invited to speak by Dr. Rane Johnson-Stempson and Dr. Jaime Teevan took good care of us while we were at MSR.

Susan, Jessica, and I have been working together since last summer on the Notable Technical Women project but (even though we created a successful Hopper Conference October 2014 Poster and Kickstarter together) we three had never met in-person before.  We had great fun talking and walking around Seattle together after the Seminar.  We are looking forward to getting a link to the video of our talks.

19 June 2015: Microsoft Research posted the video with Dr. Telle Whitney, Dr. Susan Rodger, and me speaking: “Microsoft Research Gender Diversity Lecture Series 5: History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing”

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson and Jessica Dickinson Goodman

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April 6, 2015 · 4:21 pm

Easter Egg Hunt 2015

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Yesterday morning was our annual backyard Easter Egg Hunt – a very popular event among our friends, family, and neighbors. Children ages 9 months to 20 years joined the search for hundreds of plastic eggs filled with chocolate candies. For the adults, there were two specially hidden eggs: gold and silver. Only the following poems gave clues to their locations:

Silver Egg
(buried in the dirt under a stepping stone of the steps up the riverbank)

The stone above me keeps me in the dark.
I would glow like moonlight if I could be
found. But long you’ll search in vain to find me,
because no single quality in your
thub-thubbing heart will guide you to my home:
a canine drive to find me in the ground;
a gardener’s love of dirt; you can possess
no loathing of Jerusalem Crickets’
shy heads; you must be brave to stoop to find
me here. Small hunters may contain within
themselves advantage for they are quite close
to where I make my hidey-home. But look—
you’ll find me if you search closely and dare,
to seek by bark if you would find my lair.

Gold Egg
(tied to a young palm tree frond about ten feet above the ground)

Surrounding me is evidence of past
strong growth, for when my home came here it was
a child, with slender fronds and coiled roots.
But now! My home is tall and casts a shade
quite deeply on the stones beneath my feet.
They do not reach the kennel or the bank
for my tall perch is not yet fully grown.
A teenager provides me with both shade
and shelter from the never-ending drought.
My home is safe from desiccating years
for she was bred from stock that has survived
millennia on California’s dry shores.

Desiree and Dan found the Gold and Silver eggs eventually.  eleaThanks to the Associate Easter Bunny, my daughter Jessica for the poems (composed in Washington State), and thanks to Paul and John for helping create the festivities!  I love watching the children finding eggs in the garden to fill their baskets, then re-hiding eggs for each other after most of the eggs have been collected. A delightful celebration of new life and renewal!

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Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

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March 11, 2015 · 3:13 pm

Mentoring Standard – A New Venture

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High quality mentoring changes lives. Until now there has been no clear way to measure mentoring and program effectiveness in an objective, comparable system, and there has been very little data published by mentoring programs. Mentoring Standard is a new venture with the vision to create an international norm and assessment of quality and achievement for both mentors and mentoring programs, with an associated system and process for accreditation and certification.

Kathy Jenks and I are Founders of Mentoring Standard. I announced this during my “Mentors and Role Models” talk earlier today as part of the Global Tech Women Voices – 2015 virtual conference. You can learn more about Mentoring Standard on our new website: mentoringstandard.com.  We look forward to your inquiries!

Thanks to Jessica Dickinson Goodman who designed and created the Mentoring Standard branding and website.

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Photo of Kathy Jenks Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson.
Photo of Katy Dickinson presenting in Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa by Max Mogale

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