Tag Archives: technical women

February 15, 2014 · 3:59 pm

“Positive Women” by Sam Kambali

Last week in Kigali, Rwanda, I was one of the TechWomen delegates who bought a painting at the Inema Art Center gallery. Since my mother, Eleanor Dickinson, and son, Paul D. Goodman, are both artists, I have very little free wallspace. However, I very much liked “Positive Women” by Sam Kambali. The painting is a collage of carefully-selected strips of African cloth forming the bodies of women, many of whom are raising their arms in salute. “Positive Women” seemed appropriate to the subject of our delegation (encouraging women and girls to pursue careers in STEM fields) and to the energy, enthusiasm, and remarkable professional success of the delegation members themselves. Part of its charm is that this painting incorporates the delightful variety and color of cloth we saw everywhere we went in Rwanda.

I had the gallery take the painting off its stretcher bars so I could transport it rolled up. Today, I brought “Positive Women” home from being re-mounted: my new painting is now hanging in WP668 (my office in our backyard caboose in San Jose, California). Here I am in Kigali with Sam Kambali, the artist:

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Tagged as Africa, Eleanor, Paul, Rwanda, San Jose, technical women, TechWomen, WP668

February 14, 2014 · 12:56 pm

Crafts in Rwanda

One of the pleasures of the Rwanda TechWomen delegation was shopping for crafts to bring home as presents to family and friends. In between official events, we went to group venues like Caplaki Cooperative des Artistes Plasticiens de Kigali but we also purchased from roadside vendors. It seemed to me that many of the items in the craft centers came from Tanzania (for example, anything made of ebony), and Kenya – I have seen the same stuff for sale from Kenyan vendors here in the US.

For my gifts, I tried to select items actually made in Rwanda, and when possible, from the actual craft worker. Basket making is a high-level craft in Rwanda, with the pointed “peace basket” being the famous example. We often saw women on the road carrying peace baskets, so this is not just a tourist thing. Weaving is also used to make lovely and functional jewelry – the tiny earring baskets being particularly fine. I bought several carvings of red jacaranda wood and figures woven from banana leaves. There were many items made locally from lovely bright cloth imported from Congo (DRC). Of course, we avoided anything antique or that might be made of real ivory. Our group of mentors enjoyed bargaining and talking with the craft workers as part of our shopping experience.

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Tagged as Africa, Rwanda, technical women, TechWomen

February 13, 2014 · 8:15 am

Golden Monkey Trek, Crowned Cranes in Rwanda

Terra Incognita Ecotours helped some of us TechWomen mentors visit the Mountain Gorillas and Golden Monkeys after last week’s delegation to meet the girls and women working in STEM in Rwanda. We stayed at the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge. While there, we also saw Grey Crowned Cranes, really big worms, and other interesting creatures. As soon as we returned from the monkey trek, we scraped off the mud, showered, ate lunch, and drove to the airport to start our 30 hour travel home to the Silicon Valley.

Mountain Gorillas Trek in Rwanda

Many of the TechWomen mentors signed on with Terra Incognita Ecotours for a Mountain Gorilla and Golden Monkey trek after the delegation work week, staying at the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge. We eleven were the first to arrive at the lodge. Early the next morning, we were split into two groups – since only eight tourists can visit any gorilla family in Volcanoes National Park for one hour each day. Our trek group took the easier route through the bamboo forest (1-1/2 hours hiking in, 1 hour with the gorillas, 1-1/2 hours back). The other group walked for twice as long up a much steeper volcano. We all hired porters to help us up the muddy trail – and to contribute to the local economy. My porter was called Uwemama in Kinyarwanda (Clementine was her English name). I was grateful for her helping hand. Our capable trackers were Eugene and Emanuel. The Sabyinyo group of gorillas we saw were a fascinating combination of near-human intelligence and inhumanly structured quiet calm in their relationships.

The night after our trek, at the lodge we enjoyed a fascinating presentation by Dr. Jan Ramer of Gorilla Doctors about their work caring for the medical needs of the Mountain Gorillas. She said that the endangered global-population of over 800 was growing at about four percent a year, partly because of veterinary interventions in cases of poacher snares and respiratory infections brought in by tourists.

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

February 12, 2014 · 7:55 pm

HeHeMobile, The Office, art shopping in Kigali, Rwanda

I am back in the Silicon Valley (land of great Internet access), catching up on blog posts from last week in Rwanda…

On Friday, 7 February, the TechWomen delegation visited CEO Clarisse Iribagiza and her startup team at HeHe (creators of SuperCow games), and Jon Stever of The Office, a co-working space in Kigali, Rwanda. After this last morning with our delegation, five of us visited the Inema Art Center and Ivuka Arts Kigali to enjoy a better class of local painting.

Then, eleven TechWomen mentors headed out to the mountains with Terra Incognita Ecotours on our way to visit the Mountain Gorillas and Golden Monkeys. Along the road to the Mountain Gorilla View Lodge, we saw two genocide memorials that our driver Charles said were graves of thousands slaughtered at checkpoints during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Charles was part of the Rwandan army that stopped the genocide. We also saw delights such as a young biker hitching a truck ride up the mountain, and rolled up bee hives in the eucalyptus trees that line the road.

TechWomen at Girl Hub and Rwanda University

On our last full day together in Rwanda, the TechWomen delegation visited Girl Hub and the University of Rwanda – College of Science and Technology (formerly called Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management or KIST).

Girl Hub is a strategic collaboration between the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Nike Foundation. Girl Hub helps transform the lives of adolescent girls living in poverty by unleashing their potential and empowering them with the assets they need to end poverty for themselves, their families and their community.

Girl Hub publishes Ni Nyampinga magazine and distributes it to 90,000 girls in Rwanda.

Four of the six 2013 Emerging TechWomen Leaders from Rwanda were KIST graduates. We spoke with the faculty, and enjoyed a well-escorted campus tour before meeting with about a hundred women technical students – answering their personal and professional questions. After our university visit, the TechWomen group went shopping for fabric, then had a farewell gathering at the hotel. Tomorrow, the first group of us departs for the mountains to see the gorillas. This has been a moving and inspiring week.

TechWomen Meet Technical Girls of Rwanda

The TechWomen delegation started today with a visit to the Carnegie Mellon University – Rwanda campus where we talked with the women Engineering students. Lunch was at the wonderful Shokola restaurant – on a covered deck in a garden. This was followed by a visit to the US Embassy for an address by Evan Ryan (Assistant US Secretary of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs). The TechWomen mentors then spent some delightful hours under a big tent on the embassy lawn talking about science, technology, and careers with about a hundred remarkable and lively girls from many local schools. In the evening, we enjoyed dinner with dancers at Heaven restaurant – with a night view of Kigali. Lovely and inspiring day!