Tag Archives: Palestine

October 25, 2023 · 7:55 am

TechWomen Team Palestine Pitch Win

TechWomen Team Palestine, Seed Grant and Pitch Presentation win, 20 October 2023 — TechWomen Team Palestine, Seed Grant and Pitch win, 16 October 2023

As a TechWomen Professional Mentor and country Impact Coach for many years, I have been honored and impressed with TechWomen’s Team Palestine 2023. Each year, every one of the 100+ women in 22 country teams invited by the U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia works hard to create a project that will improve their home when they return from working and learning in America. Team Palestine has worked especially hard under the horrific circumstances of their homeland being at war, starting two weeks into their six week program. Their compassion, dedication, and intelligent leadership has inspired the entire TechWomen community. Working with my sister mentors, we coached the team in developing a project to support STEM education among primary school students in Palestine. On 16 October in San Francisco, they gave their three minute pitch, and on 20 October, Team Palestine was one of five teams that won an award and seed funding! I am so proud that Team Palestine will help children at home learn science, technology, engineering, and math as part of recovering from the trauma of war.

Linked here are the Project Aspiration presentation slides from Pitch Day, and TechWomen Team Palestine’s Executive Summary. Please follow us on Facebook!

TechWomen Team Palestine pitch win, 16 Oct 2023

Page Updated 3 February 2024

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Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Mentoring, Mentoring Standard, Middle East, Palestine, teaching, technical women, TechWomen

September 12, 2023 · 2:52 pm

Welcoming TechWomen Team Palestine

Shagufta Ahmed, Nancy Hendrickson, Katy Dickinson - TechWomen Team Palestine Impact Coaches, 11 Sep 2023 — Shagufta Ahmed, Nancy Hendrickson, Katy Dickinson – TechWomen Team Palestine Impact Coaches

Yesterday, my sister TechWomen Impact Coaches for 2023 Team Palestine and I had a lovely conversation starting to plan for the arrival of our new mentees. Looking forward to learning from Shagufta Ahmed and Nancy Hendrickson! The 104 TechWomen mentees from 21 countries arrive in San Francisco soon and we are very excited to meet them.

I am thinking of my dear friends and colleagues among the Palestine TechWomen Fellows of cohorts-past, and asking them to support the incoming team. I am also thinking of my journeys in Palestine and hoping that I will learn as much during the next six weeks. My first trip to Palestine was in 1979 after I was graduated from U.C. Berkeley, my second was in 2006 to create a Sun Microsystems mentoring program between technical groups in St. Petersburg (Russia) and Hertzliya (Israel), and the third was an (unofficial) delegation of five TechWomen mentors to Gaza City in 2016, as guests of Mercy Corps and Gaza Sky Geeks. I very much look forward to traveling there again.

I was honored to be the 2010-2011 Process Architect for the U.S. State Department – Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ TechWomen mentoring program and am very proud to continue my service as a citizen diplomat. In 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expanded TechWomen (based in the San Francisco Bay Area 2010-2022) to include a cohort in Chicago. My daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, is a mentor for 2023’s Team Nigeria, based in Chicago. Jessica was one of the mentors who went with me to Palestine in 2016 and she has been an Impact Coach for Team Palestine in prior TechWomen years.

About TechWomen: “TechWomen empowers, connects and supports the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, 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.” There are 1,153 TechWomen Emerging Leaders and Fellows in 22 Countries. More than 150 companies have hosted TechWomen Emerging Leaders.

2006 John Dead Sea Israel — Katy standing in the Dead Sea 2006

TechWomen arrive in Gaza, Feb 2016 — Gaza City Vase 2016

Gaza Sky Geeks with TechWomen, Feb 2016 — Gaza Sky Geeks with TechWomen 2016

Katy Dickinson and TechWomen presenting in Gaza City, Feb 2016 — Gaza Sky Geeks with TechWomen 2016

Selfies with Eileen Brewer at Gaza City harbor, Feb 2016

TechWomen in Yosemite

TechWomen at Yosemite Falls, CA, 27 Mar 2022

I am proud of my daughter Jessica whose annual Yosemite camping trip for her Palestinian mentees has evolved into a TechWomen tradition. This year, there were enough mentors and mentees for two weekends. I was a driver last weekend, joining about thirty others – many of them camping for the first time. We stopped over in Columbia for lunch on the way to our campsite at Tuttletown. We had a lovely time getting to know each other, figuring out how to raise a tent, singing pop songs, and eating s’mores – and Safa of Libya got to touch a river for the first time ever!

TechWomen Jessica and Samantha, Columbia, CA, 26 Mar 2022

TechWomen at Tuttletown camp, CA, 26 Mar 2022

sunset at Tuttletown camp, CA, 26 Mar 2022

TechWomen at Tuttletown camp, CA, 27 Mar 2022

TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program. I have been working with TechWomen since I helped to design it in 2010. Launched in 2011, TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

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Tagged as Africa, Central Asia, Jessica, Libya, Mentoring, Middle East, Palestine, technical women, TechWomen

August 16, 2019 · 5:11 pm

TechWomen Team Algeria 2019

Proud to have been accepted as a TechWomen mentor for the 8th time, this year as Impact Coach for Algeria. I am honored be working for the 4th year with co-mentors Mercedes Soria and Fatema Kothari.

The 108 TechWomen emerging leaders from 22 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia arrive in the San Francisco Bay Area in September. Larissa Brown Shapiro and I were co-mentors for TechWomen Fellow Imen Rahal of Algeria in 2013, giving me some background. So looking forward to this! TechWomen is a program of the US State Department for which I was Process Architect in 2010-2011.

My daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman was also accepted as a TechWomen mentor, for 2019 Team Palestine!

Pictures Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson – of gifts from Imen Rahal, 2013. Photo of Katy, Mercedes, and Fatema taken by IIE TechWomen, October 2018. Quote posted by IIE to TechWomen Twitter site, 11 April 2018.

TechWomen Team Morocco – Connect to Impact

I have been proud to team up with Mercedes Soria and Fatema Kothari for a third year as TechWomen impact coaches, to work with five remarkable leaders from Morocco: Safaa Boubia, Nisrine Oukacha, Fatima Zzahra Meziane, Fatima Zahra Oumenni, and Imane Nassif. We have been working together since the ladies arrived in September to create Connect to Impact – a new online platform offering resources for nonprofits in Morocco to showcase their actions plans, increase their awareness and access to donors, and in time, improve their skills through fit-for-purpose training. Connect to Impact will provide a bilateral matchmaking algorithm between donors and nonprofit organizations.

Team Morocco presented about Connect to Impact at TechWomen Pitch Day yesterday. We find out at the Community Event on Monday, 22 October 2018, which of the twenty country teams won.

What is TechWomen?
TechWomen empowers, connects and supports the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, 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.

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.

Part of the joy of TechWomen is its large and supportive community. My daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman is also a TechWomen mentor, again coaching Team Palestine, which also gave an excellent pitch yesterday. During the intermission, we got to see videos from TechWomen Fellows of prior years, including Solve24, created by our own 2017 Team Lebanon. Wish us luck in winning the pitch competition!

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Photos Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson

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Tagged as Africa, Central Asia, Geeks, Jessica, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Palestine, teaching, technical women, TechWomen

July 15, 2018 · 5:25 pm

Summary: General Convention GC79

Written after the final legislative day of the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church “GC79” (in Austin, Texas). I was with the Deputation of the Diocese of El Camino Real (Central California). In my first GC79 blog, I gave a list of the big topics for discussion at this General Convention. Here is that same list, linked to an Episcopal News Service article about what happened:

Marriage Equality: approved a historic resolution giving all Episcopalians the ability to be married by their priests in their home churches
Revising the Book of Common Prayer: adopted a resolution that allows all congregations in the Episcopal Church to use optional, expansive-language versions of three Rite II Eucharistic prayers in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer
The Episcopal Church and the #MeToo movement: voices and stories of women played a significant role, from a liturgy where bishops offered laments and confession for the church’s role in sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, to passing a resolution so that deputies can to bring babies on the floor of the House of Deputies to feed them
A salary for the president of the House of Deputies: agreed to a plan to pay the president of the House of Deputies for the work of the office
Following up on the church’s three priorities: evangelism, racial reconciliation and justice and care of creation
Formulating the 2019-2021 triennial budget: accepted $134 million three-year spending plan
Middle East peace: of 15 resolutions on Israel-Palestine, only six passed both houses, on topics including Palestinian children, the status of Jerusalem, the disproportionate use of lethal force on both sides, and ways the Episcopal Church can press for peace through its investment decisions

Other GC79 big topics and actions of interest:

Resolutions on ethical investing in gun manufacturers and retailers: develop and implement a shareholder engagement plan based on the Mosbacher-Bennett Principles for Investors in the Gun Industry
Episcopal Church of Cuba admitted as a diocese: Our Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves who was born and raised in Florida was there to welcome Bishop Griselda Delgado Del Carpio to the House of Bishops
Lesser Feasts and Fasts and the calendar of saints are a step closer to revision
Thurgood Marshall, Pauli Murray, and Florence Li Tim-Oi are now permanent saints of the church
Bishop Mary was re-elected as Vice President of the House of Bishops.
Passed a resolution to “Establish an Advisory Council on Disability and Deaf Access” – to reduce exclusion in the life of the church
In addition to resolutions supporting immigrants and their families, a thousand Episcopalians protested at the ICE Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas, on 8 July 2018. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon at the event was inspiring: We come because we are people of love. America Means Welcome. America is great because America is good.

Part of General Convention is spending casual time with the remarkable people who attend – and visiting Exhibit Hall booths of programs and institutions and vendors. I bought so many books I had to ship them home in a separate box – which has not yet arrived. Pictures below are of some of the other giveaways and publications I collected. On my flight home from Texas to California, I spotted Dr. Catherine Meeks of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing who gave a remarkable talk at GC79. The Rev. Rob Fisher of our Deputation reported that he spent his flight home reading The Agile Church, which he bought at the GC79 Exhibit Hall.

These blog posts and other GC79 news are on the Diocese of El Camino Real website. Here is my complete set from GC79 as the official diocesan blogger:

Episcopal General Convention, Austin Texas, Day 1, 4 July 2018
Day 2, Episcopal General Convention, 5 July 2018
Day 3, Episcopal General Convention, 6 July 2018
Day 4, General Convention, 7 July 2018
Day 5, General Convention, 8 July 2018
Day 6, General Convention, 9 July 2018
Day 7, General Convention, 10 July 2018
Day 8, General Convention, 11 July 2018
Day 9, General Convention, 12 July 2018

On 16 July 2018, Episcopal News Service published a summary of GC79.

Note that the GC79 Virtual Binder will only be available online through Labor Day (3 September 2018).

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Images Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson.

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Filed under Church, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Disabilities, Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, General Convention, Israel, marriage, Middle East, Palestine

July 11, 2018 · 8:35 pm

Day 8, General Convention

This was the seventh legislative session day of the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church “GC79” (in Austin, Texas). I am with the Deputation of the Diocese of El Camino Real (Central California).

Today, the GC79 legislative calendar was so full that we had to add an after-dinner session. Very long day! Bishop Griselda Delgado Del Carpio was welcomed with a sustained standing ovation and joyous singing to the House of Deputies after the enthusiastic passage of a historic resolution welcoming the church of Cuba as a diocese of the Episcopal Church. We considered the budget for the first time in a joint session of the House of Deputies and House of Bishops. The House of Bishops rejected the Isreal-Palestine resolution but passed a “Marriage Rites for the Whole Church” resolution with a small amendment.

Marriage Rites now return to the House of Deputies for a final vote. The House of Deputies today agreed on a plan for liturgical and Prayer Book revision plus a great many less-controversial resolutions (including one welcoming nursing mother Deputies). We are proud of El Camino Real Deputy Jeff Diehl who appeared briefly on the House of Deputies big platform as Co-Chair of the Environmental Stewardship and Care of Creation committee today.

Deputies in wheelchairs and Deputies who find it hard to hear spoke passionately in support of a resolution to “Establish an Advisory Council on Disability and Deaf Access” – which was passed. Deputy Sarah Watkins of Texas said “nothing about us without us.” She and Deputy Charis and others made the point that there had been nine such resolutions passed in General Convention since 1985 but little effective change has been made – perhaps because few who are themselves impaired have been represented in the groups making the decisions. There have been signers for the deaf at House of Deputy and House of Bishop sessions and worship services but not at most other meetings. There was an interesting moment during Tuesday evening’s worship service when flute player Dakota Wind from Standing Rock spoke silently in Lakota signs with the GC79 deaf interpreter on the stage.

These blog posts and other GC79 news are posted on the Diocese of El Camino Real website.