Tag Archives: Morocco

November 5, 2013 · 3:28 pm

TechWomen: Day 2 at the State Department

200 TechWomen – including emerging leaders from Africa and the Middle East and their Silicon Valley mentors – visited the US State Department here in Washington DC for the second day today. This included a formal lunch in the Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room, plus fascinating meetings with Lee Satterfield (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State), Macon Philips (Coordinator, Bureau of International Information Programs), and Sheila Casey (Deputy Director, Office of Citizen Exchanges at U.S. Dept. of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs), plus two panel discussions:

Katie Dowd (Senior Advisor to the US CTO at The White House), Jennifer Pahlka (Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the USA, CEO of Code for America), and Erin Lindsay (Deputy Director of Online Engagement for the Office of Digital Strategy).
Dee Dee Myers (Political Analyst and the first woman to be a White House Press Secretary) with four TechWomen participants.

We also heard from Chang Suh of the US State Department’s International Exchange Alumni program about TechWomen Alumnae opportunities for RAR: resources, access, and recognition. This month with TechWomen has been an amazing experience. Our farewell party is tonight. Then we sadly say our goodbyes as our sisters return home to Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

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Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, technical women, TechWomen

September 19, 2013 · 10:52 pm

TechWomen Mentor Workshop and Mixer

We 2013 TechWomen mentors met as a group for the first time today. What an inspiring group of talented technical women! Dozens of Silicon Valley’s great companies are actively supporting this impressive program. TechWomen is an Initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs:

TechWomen is a professional mentorship and exchange program developed in response to President Obama’s efforts to strengthen relations between the United States and the Middle East and North Africa. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton first announced the TechWomen initiative on April 28, 2010 during President Obama’s Entrepreneurship Summit. In June 2011, TechWomen launched with 37 participants from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the Palestinian Territories. In 2012, the program expanded to include women from Tunsia and Yemen. In 2013, the cohort doubled in size with the addition of women from Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

We were welcomed this afternoon by Heather Ramsey (Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, Institute of International Education) in person, and Lee Satterfield (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) with Sheila Casey (Deputy Director, Office of Citizen Exchanges at U.S. Dept. of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs) by way of video from Washington D.C. The interesting keynote address was by Gabriela Styf-Sjöman (Ericsson Vice President, Product Line IP and Broadband Cloud Computing and NMS), followed by a cultural training session.

Our 78 Emerging Leaders arrive early next month from the Middle East and Africa. My 2013 mentee is from Algeria – I am so looking forward to meeting her in person! I am serving as her Cultural Mentor with Larissa Shapiro as her Professional Mentor.

TechWomen and International Visitors at Home

Yesterday, the TechWomen mentors gathered at my house in San Jose to cook a dinner for eleven guests from the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the Institute of International Education (IIE West Coast). Our guests arrived from Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Here is more about the IVLP program:

IVLP at IIESF works to promote citizen diplomacy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Community supporters and IIE members are called “Citizen Diplomats” and promote international understanding through person-to-person interaction with emerging foreign leaders from around the globe. Through direct contact with these visitors, members have an opportunity to share unique aspects of the Bay Area and/or their professional field, while increasing the visitors’ understanding of local and national culture and institutions. In the past 53 years Citizen Diplomats have had direct dialogues with tens of thousands of emerging international leaders from more than 145 countries.

These particular ladies are part of WISE (Women’s Innovations in Science and Engineering), invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Their program was arranged by World Learning.

The TechWomen prepared a delicious potluck dinner, I showed them WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office, John and Paul helped and served as local guides to the house and kitchen, and everyone had a delightful time talking and learning. As always, I feel blessed in the community of my TechWomen sisters and look forward to our continued work together!

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Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains, Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Egypt, garden, Geeks, John, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Paul, San Francisco, San Jose, Willow Glen, WP668

April 19, 2013 · 11:59 am

Portland Covers

John and I came into San Jose, California, this morning on Amtrak after a quick trip north to Portland, Oregon. John was at the OpenStack open source conference and I was working for MentorCloud remotely from the comfortable and friendly Kimpton Hotel Monaco.

Walking to meals in downtown Portland, I followed up on my hobby of collecting manhole cover designs. I have been posting pictures on my Pinterest board Civic Ironwork – Manhole Covers. Searching other photo collection boards in Pinterest, it turns out I am not alone in noticing the variation and design of these humble urban elements. The pictures of manhole covers in Japan are certainly the most colorful.

So far, I myself have posted manhole cover images from Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the USA. In downtown Portland alone, I saw 26 unique designs and inscriptions – the most variety I have seen in one place.

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Geeks, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, San Jose

February 10, 2013 · 10:47 pm

Friends in Beirut

The 2013 TechWomen delegation to Jordan has sadly said its goodbyes. Most of us have returned to Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia, Jordan, and the USA. We will continue to communicate on email, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook, by telephone and sometimes even through precious visits to each other’s homes.

My daughter Jessica and I traveled yesterday to the lovely city of Beirut, Lebanon, to visit more TechWomen friends and to meet with Al Makassed (the Makassed Philanthropic Islamic Association of Beirut). Our dear TechWomen friends Sukaina Al-Nasrawi and Maysoun Ibrahim met us in the hotel lobby when we checked in, then took us on a walking tour of downtown. We were honored to have a driving tour and marvelous dinner with Dr. Amine Daouk, President of Makassed, and Adla Chatila, Makassed’s IT and Finance Director (my amazing and talented TechWomen 2012 mentee). We look forward to seeing even more of this fascinating place today.

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Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Episcopal church, Jessica, Jordan, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Palestine, technical women, TechWomen

October 12, 2012 · 8:01 am

TechWomen’s last day in Washington DC

The TechWomen enjoyed their last day in Washington DC and are now slowly making their way home to either the Silicon Valley area (mentors), or to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen in the MENA region (mentees). I miss them already!

Wednesday was full of TechWomen-normal activities: networking, exchanging ideas and experiences, and taking pictures. It is usual for me to be given three to six cameras and smart phones and asked to photograph a posed group of lovely intelligent women. The group I am photographing may start small but if the setting is good, it often doubles and triples as other TechWomen join in. Taking TechWomen group pictures is an enjoyable if frenetic experience. My daughter Jessica lives in Washington DC and was invited to two of the TechWomen dinners – which made picture taking even more enjoyable.

We met in the morning in the Loy Henderson conference room at the US State Department for a political discussion, then had a magnificent lunch in the Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room. The TechWomen were welcomed and honored by Ann Stock, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. We regretfully did not get to meet the program sponsor, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ann Stock was patient and a very good sport – she stayed after the lunch to take dozens of pictures with the TechWomen. I love the diplomatic rooms at the US State Department, with cases full of china and silver (some by Paul Revere), and walls covered with portraits of American historical greats. The copy of the Declaration of Independence is my particular favorite.

After lunch, we returned to the Henderson room for Sheila Casey (Deputy Director, Office of Citizen Exchanges at U.S. Department of State) and Heather Ramsey (Director at Institute of International Education) to give the mentees their participation certificates (signed by Secretary Clinton). Our going away party was around the very windy roof pool of the Donovan House hotel (the party eventually moved downstairs since we were all freezing!).

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

Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Geeks, Jessica, Jordan, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Palestine, technical women, TechWomen

October 25, 2011 · 8:17 am

Mohammed VI of Morocco

On last week’s visit to Morocco, I was impressed by how many positive comments I heard about King Mohammed. Being an American, kings are strange to me. I am used to our special version of democracy where complaining about the government is expected and politics is a contact sport.

Seeing the young king’s picture everywhere was a surprise – especially the many photos which had clearly been taken locally (not formal portraits). Mohammed VI of Morocco seems to be not only highly regarded by his people but actively involved in making positive social change. In particular, the 2004 reform of the Mudawana or family code was widely praised for supporting women’s rights and gender equality within an Islamic legal framework.

I was only there for ten days and maybe I just did not hear about the bad stuff. But I can’t think of an American politician about whom everyone has only good to say. Like the king’s photo which presided over most of our TechWomen meeting rooms – he seems to be very much a part of his people’s daily life.

Tag Archives: Morocco

TechWomen: Day 2 at the State Department

TechWomen Mentor Workshop and Mixer

TechWomen and International Visitors at Home

Portland Covers

Friends in Beirut

TechWomen’s last day in Washington DC

Mohammed VI of Morocco

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