Tag Archives: Mentoring

May 14, 2014 · 4:13 pm

Women of Vision, King Abdullah of Jordan, TechWomen

Last week, I sat with the Anita Borg Institute Advisory Board at a gala celebrating Women of Vision, and in particular, the well-deserved award for Leadership honoring Dr. Maria Klawe, President of Harvey Mudd College here in California. I am dating myself to write that I remember when Mudd was an all-male institution. Maria and her team have grown Mudd from 10% women in Computer Science to 40% – and have kept that 40% stable for years. This unique accomplishment deserves some celebration! Maria is amazing – she is also #17 on Fortune’s list of the world’s 50 greatest leaders.

The other inspiring winners were Tal Rabin (Research Staff Member and Manager cryptographic research, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) for Innovation; and Kathrin Winkler (Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, EMC Corporation) for Social Impact. Bank of America won as the 2014 Top Company for Women in Computing. Also attending the event were many of my sister mentors who have served in the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen program for scientific and technical women in the Middle East and Africa, including: Jameeka Aaron (of Lockheed Martin), Larissa Shapiro (of Mozilla), Andrea Leszek (of Salesforce), and Rahima Mohammed (of Intel).

Yesterday, my husband John and I drove to Berkeley to see His Majesty, King Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein of Jordan speak at International House on the University of California campus. I was pleased to see the slide saying that 30% of Jordan’s tech industry workers are women – better than the 26% in America as of 2013.

I have never seen the King in person before, although last year I was honored to meet his cousin, Her Royal Highness Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan. Also, when my daughter Jessica and I were on the bus to Petra in Jordan, we watched “The Royal Tour“, a video featuring King Abdullah riding his motorcycle to show off his country. Yesterday’s talk is yet-another event that entered my life because of TechWomen. Mentor Lucie Newcomb (of NewComm Global Group) posted information about the event – including how to get tickets.

TechWomen 2014 mentor sign ups open soon! Please consider expanding your mind, experience, and heart to join us!

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Filed under Home & Family, Hopper - Anita Borg Institute, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Geeks, Jessica, John, Jordan, Mentoring, Middle East, San Jose, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, University of California

May 10, 2014 · 10:05 pm

Happy Lizards

My recent redesign of my garden’s Willow Glen street planting beds is enthusiastically approved of by the alligator lizard community. I took out some large ratty irises and replaced them with lavender and yarrow. Now, there are lizards happily sunning themselves on all of the rocks. One bold fellow even decided to sit on my garden spade for a while.

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Tagged as garden, Mentoring, San Jose, Willow Glen

April 30, 2014 · 10:44 pm

Recruiting TechWomen Mentors

Last night, many of the TechWomen 2011-2013 mentor alumnae from the Silicon Valley and San Francisco participated in an event introducing the U.S. State Department mentoring program for women in the Middle East and Africa to potential new mentors. Thanks to BrightRoll for hosting the event!

What is TechWomen?

TechWomen empowers, connects, and supports the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from Africa and the Middle East by providing them the access and opportunity needed to advance their careers, pursue their dreams, and inspire women and girls in their communities.

Through mentorship and exchange, TechWomen strengthens participants’ professional capacity, increases mutual understanding between key networks of professionals, and expands girls’ interest in STEM careers by exposing them to female role models.

1,400 women in STEM from 16 countries have already applied to be one of the 78 emerging leaders who will come to the San Francisco Bay Area in October 2014. Selections will be announced in June. Also in June, applications will open for professional mentors. Cultural mentor applications open in July. This is a life-changing and excellent program – both for mentors and mentees. I have been part of TechWomen since 2010 and I recommend it highly!

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Tagged as Africa, Geeks, Mentoring, Middle East, San Francisco, technical women, TechWomen

April 12, 2014 · 9:28 pm

Rwanda on my mind

I have been thinking during this twenty year anniversary and rememberance of the Rwandan Genocide of the remarkable emerging leaders I met during my recent visit as part of the TechWomen Rwanda delegation. Tomorrow, at the American Association of University Women (AAUW) California convention in Los Angeles, I am giving a breakfast talk on mentoring. I will open my talk by describing the delegation’s visit to meet the inspiring Gashora Girls Academy (GGAST) in Rwanda – as way of illustrating how mentoring is about meeting people where they are. I have been saving the Rwanda remembrance news stories served up by my Feedly reader, as a way seeing how the world understands these events and what came after. Here is what I have so far:

Rwanda Genocide Anniversary: 20 Years Later, Flame Stirs Memories Huffington Post, by Jason Straziuso, 28 March 2014
A good man in Rwanda BBC, by Mark Doyle, 5 April 2014
The photographs that reunited families, BBC, by Phil Coomes, 4 April 2014
How Abandonment In Rwandan Genocide Changed Peacekeepers’ Role, NPR, by Gregory Warner, 6 April 2014
Fighting For Rwanda’s Justice In France, NPR, 6 April 2014
Rwanda genocide: UN ashamed, says Ban Ki-moon, BBC, 7 April 2014
Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter, BBC, 6 April 2014
Portraits of Reconciliation, 20 years after the genocide in Rwanda, reconciliation still happens one encounter at a time, New York Times, by Pieter Hugo and Susan Dominus, 6 April 2014
Rwanda’s children taught of genocide 20 years on, BBC, 7 April 2014
Radio host Furaha Amos uses airwaves to rebuild Rwanda after genocide, ABC, by Alexandra Fisher, 8 April 2014
‘I saw armed gang murder my family’, BBC, 7 April 2014
Remembering Rwandans Who Followed Their Conscience, NPR, by Gregory Warner, 8 April 214
Rwanda: The day the prime minister was murdered, BBC, 9 April 2014
Rwanda: Measuring up the price of the political progress, BBC, 8 April 2014
Rwanda: From ministers to exiles, BBC, 9 April 2014
Letter from Africa: Is sorry ever enough?, BBC, 9 April 2014
Rwanda genocide: ‘Domino effect’ in DR Congo, BBC, 10 April 2014
A Reporter Reflects On Rwanda: ‘It’s Like A Madness Took Over’, NPR, by Jackie Northam, 10 April 2014
How Rwanda’s Only Ice Cream Shop Challenges Cultural Taboos, NPR, by Gregory Warner, 10 April 2014

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Tagged as AAUW, Africa, Mentoring, Rwanda, teaching, technical women, TechWomen

April 12, 2014 · 11:37 am

AAUW Mentoring Talk

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is holding their California convention this weekend in Los Angeles. Tomorrow, I am giving a breakfast talk on mentoring. I am a member of both the San Jose and California Online branches of AAUW and am looking forward to the big event!

13 April 2014: Here I am giving the talk:

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Tagged as AAUW, Mentoring, teaching, technical women

March 26, 2014 · 4:44 pm

Announcing katydickinson.com

Announcing the new website for Katy Dickinson Consulting: katydickinson.com

Katy Dickinson Consulting creates measurably effective long-lasting infrastructure and processes in a professional and technical environment. Successful large programs have included global mentoring, innovation and product life cycle, and corporate intellectual property management systems.

I have been developing website content and choosing among my photos for the pages: Clients, Contact, Key Publications and Best Practices, and About Katy Dickinson. A side benefit of this work was discovering online a 2003 patent application I thought was never filed:

Dickinson, Katherine V.G., Jos Marlowe, James Gosling “Method and apparatus for automatically archiving and clearing intellectual property” US Patent Application 20030055848 (20 March 2003)

I also discovered that my 2000 ecommerce patent was cited by 43 later patents!

Gandel, Deborah E., Katherine V.G. Dickinson, et alia, “Method and apparatus for implementing electronic software distribution” US Patent 6,167,568 (26 December 2000).

Much appreciation for great support from my clever daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman and from my husband John Plocher helping to create my company’s new website. Jessica designs websites professionally as the Digital Communications Specialist for Polaris Project. John is the Principal Storage Architect for EVault. I am blessed to have such experts in my own family.

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Jessica, John, Mentoring

March 23, 2014 · 8:56 pm

Jill’s Morocco Photos

Jill Finlayson and I were both part of the TechWomen US State Department mentoring delegation to Morocco earlier this month. She brought along a big Nikon camera and I had my hand-sized Panasonic Lumix DMC-Lx5. As we walked together, sometimes I would be in position for the best photo and sometimes Jill was. With permission, here are some of Jill’s images that I am glad she captured:

Rug sellers in Fez showing the carpet I soon bought