Tag Archives: teaching

Yesterday, the TechWomen delegation here in Morocco met with the impressive and intelligent first woman Mayor of Marrakech, Madame le Presidente Fatima Zahra Mansouri, at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall). After visiting the Association A Foulki Pour Femmes (women’s craft association) and being treated to pancakes, homemade jam and tea, we traveled across country by bus to Casablanca where we had dinner at the recreation of the mythical Rick’s Cafe from the movie Casablanca.

Images Copyright 2011 Katy Dickinson
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The TechWomen delegation is about to start its 4th day here in Marrakech, Morocco. Yesterday morning, we met with Madame Milouda Hazeb, political leader and president of Ennakhil District (a member of the parliament), then talked about technical careers for women at ENSA (National School of Applied Sciences). After lunch with local women business leaders of AFEM, we visited the well-managed and loving Dar Tifl orphanage, then the Dar Taliba school for girls. The children were heartbreakingly sweet and sharp. At Dar Taliba we learned that most of the girls excel in math and science but they have no working computers. Something to look into! We had a lovely shopping trip to the souks (I bought 3 amazing Berber carpets) then a very late but elegant dinner at the Palais Gharnata, including an athletic belly dancer.  There are cats everywhere!

Images Copyright 2011 Katy Dickinson
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Cats and crafts and food and technology was our second day yesterday here in Marrakesh, Morocco. We toured the city and Jardin Majorelle of Yves Saint Laurent, and taught ecommerce at a Women’s craft center in the country (Femmes Artisanes pour le commerce equitable). Last night, eight of us walked in the Jamaa el Fna street market and open air theater where we heard music and saw shows. It was wild and wonderful!

Images Copyright 2011 Katy Dickinson

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My father’s 85th birthday is at the end of this month.  I wanted to create his lifetime picture book and send it to the printer before I go to Morocco for a week with the TechWomen delegation of mentors and mentees.  I have been working on the book on and off for a month. I am very much looking forward to that trip to North Africa but glad I will be back in time for my father’s birthday party.

My husband and I just watched How to live before you die, the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University by Steve Jobs. Last night, I finished putting together my book and sent it off to be printed.  On this sad day of Jobs’ death, when we mourn and pay tribute to one of the great creative technical leaders of the Silicon Valley, I take special pleasure in using the remarkable tools that Jobs brought into being.  The birthday book was created using Apple iPhoto on a MacBook Pro laptop computer with pictures from a variety of family sources, particularly the collections I put together for my father’s 80th birthday in 2006 and my mother’s 80th birthday earlier this year.  The Apple Store is printing my book.  Like Steve Jobs, my father is a technical innovator. Here is the book’s introduction:

Ben Wade Oakes Dickinson III was born in 1926 in Hickory Township, Pennsylvania, to Ben Wade Orr Dickinson, Junior, and Gladys Grace Oakes Dickinson. His one sibling, Robert Wayne was born eight years later. Wade and Wayne have been lifelong partners, starting over 25 companies together and being granted over 35 patents for a broad variety of technical inventions.

Wade attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, then West Point (the United States Military Academy) starting at the end of World War II and graduating in 1949. He worked on the United States Air Force Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program, was graduated from the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology, and was a researcher at RAND Corporation. Wade left the military to join Bechtel Corporation, then served as Technical Advisor on Atomic Energy to the US Congress. Wade and Wayne taught the class “Venture Design: The Start Up Company” (Engineering-110) for the University of California at Berkeley for over 15 years.

Wade married Eleanor Evelyn Vaughan Creekmore in 1952 with whom he had three children: Mark, Katy, and Peter. He has six grandchildren: Jessica and Paul, Corey and Forrest, Lynda and Daniel.

Even though I was able to fit hundreds of pictures of my father and our family into the 90 page custom book, there were many left over. Some of the pictures with this blog entry made it into the book but others did not.  I hope the printed book will get here before I go to Morocco.

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Images Copyright 2011 by Katy Dickinson