Tag Archives: TechWomen

January 26, 2015 · 9:32 am

TechWomen 1st Day of Meetings in Johannesburg and Pretoria

The TechWomen Delegation spent the morning of this first day of formal meetings at the The University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”) campus speaking with US diplomatic, economic, cultural, and political staff about South Africa. We then traveled by bus to Pretoria for a fascinating afternoon hosted by the African Development Bank discussing a wide variety of technical-women’s issues in Africa, including: access to technology, workforce capacity building, and leadership development.

There was interest both in the “TechWomen Emerging Leaders from Africa and the Middle East” posters and playing cards (now available for purchase thanks to Jessica creating our new ecommerce website!), and in the Mentoring Best Practices materials I have published. Eileen Brewer and I presented posters and card decks to our hosts at each of the sites we visited.

TechWomen Tour Johannesburg

Today, the TechWomen Delegation (senior technical mentors from the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, Emerging Leaders from the Middle East and Africa, IIE staff, and staff from the US State Department, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs) had our first formal introduction to Johannesburg. We started with an orientation talk at the hotel, then took the bus to the Apartheid Museum, followed by an informal lunch and shopping at the Arts on Main creative space.

The Apartheid Museum is very well presented and is both fascinating and disturbing. I was happy that the museum did not start South African history with the Dutch colonization (as have two other introduction talks we have heard): it included millennia-old cave paintings and stories of native peoples. I had heard much of the story before but not in such deep detail.

After visiting Arts on Main, we went on a bus tour of the area. We saw many “mothballed” buildings downtown (big unused hotels or office spaces blocked off with temporary boards and brickwork to keep out squatters). On Ghandi Square the great man presides in bronze in his lawyer’s gown. Johannesburg has both very rich and very poor: we drove past the elegant diamond-inspired De Beers headquarters and also shanty towns. There is now a big lightning storm and it is raining so I am staying in the hotel tonight.

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Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

January 24, 2015 · 11:39 am

TechWomen and Lions in Johannesburg, South Africa

I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, this morning. I will spend the next week as part of the TechWomen Delegation – with senior technical mentors from the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, Emerging Leaders from many of the 16 program countries in the Middle East and Africa, IIE staff, and staff from the US State Department, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Our first official meeting is tomorrow, so today a small group of us shopped at Nelson Mandela Square, then went to the Lion Park to see impressive wildlife, and pet some rowdy lion cubs. A good start to an exciting adventure!

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

January 22, 2015 · 11:42 am

Distributing Cards to TechWomen Honorees

I am traveling to South Africa today (starting on Thursday and arriving Saturday) as part of the TechWomen Delegation. I will be carrying “TechWomen Emerging Leaders from Africa and the Middle East” playing card decks and posters honoring 54 technical women from 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa. These proud alumnae of the US State Department, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs‘ TechWomen mentoring program are featured as worthy role models for women and girls from around the world. Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Eileen Brewer, and I have enjoyed developing this project and are honored to work with such remarkable technical women.

I will be giving each Emerging Leader honoree her own individual playing card with my letter of thanks and appreciation. Some envelopes will go directly to South Africa TechWomen Delegation members who are also honorees, and others will travel with those honorees to be handed off when they get back to their home countries. I wish that we had enough funding to give each honoree a full card deck but we only raised enough seed money to print a very limited number for the first edition.

Jessica is now developing (and Susan Rodger and I are testing) a new ecommerce site to sell these TechWomen Emerging Leader materials, as well as the Notable Women in Computing educational materials. Since our Kickstarter project ended, we have gotten many requests for card decks and posters. I will announce when they will be available for public sale soon.

“TechWomen Emerging Leaders from Africa and the Middle East” is the first publication of the TechWomen Alumnae group, and is a daughter of the “Notable Women in Computing” project. More daughter projects are now in development.

They Are Here! TechWomen Emerging Leaders Playing Cards Arrived

As of January 2015, these cards are available for sale on Notable Technical Women.

The box of 30 TechWomen Emerging Leaders playing card decks honoring 54 technical women from 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa just arrived! The Emerging Leaders are alumnae of the US State Department, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs mentoring program hosted in Silicon Valley annually. This is a daughter of the Notable Women in Computing project. The TechWomen Emerging Leaders posters (now being printed) and card decks will go with me on the South Africa for the TechWomen Delegation this week. Thanks to Jessica Dickinson Goodman and to Eileen Brewer for their work on the TechWomen Emerging Leaders project.

20 January 2015 – The posters are printed too!

Images Copyright by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher 2015

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Tagged as Africa, Jessica, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

January 15, 2015 · 6:09 pm

108 Technical Role Models and Mentors

As of January 2015, these cards and posters are available for sale on Notable Technical Women.

I am proud to present 108 role models and mentors. Each of these technical women has earned her place through remarkable accomplishments and experience:

54 Notable Women in Computing who are pioneers or have received multiple, high-level awards from more than one institution (such as being named an ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, elected to a National Academy, or receiving the Turing Award).
54 TechWomen Emerging Leaders (2011-2014, from 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa) – alumnae of the US State Department, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs mentoring program hosted in Silicon Valley annually.

You may know that after selling out the first edition of Notable Women playing cards at the Hopper Conference, Dr. Susan Rodger (Computer Science, Duke University), Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I created the Notable Women in Computing Kickstarter, which was crowd funded by generous backers at five times our original asking. Since then, Jessica has ably managed our production and shipping. Card decks and posters shipped last month to not only our backers but also to 500 educators around the world (USA, Netherlands, Scotland, Nigeria, Lebanon, New Zealand, India…). We are now getting many photos of the cards and posters “in the wild” from teachers and schools, companies, and even from honorees. Susan and Jessica and I are discussing our next steps for the project, since we are still getting new requests for decks and posters. Jessica is setting up an ecommerce site for future purchases and new customers. More news on that soon…

“Notable Women in Computing” has also inspired many daughter projects – including the “TechWomen Emerging Leaders” poster and card decks (for which Jessica was also the designer!) – now in production to go to South Africa for the TechWomen Delegation next week.

A role model is a person whose behavior, example, or success is emulated by others, especially by younger people. That is, a role model can inspire without ever communicating directly with the person whose life they have touched. Mentors, on the other hand, advise and inspire directly. In short, practical terms:

Mentors make introductions.
Mentors give recommendations to resources.
Mentors give feedback for the mentee to consider.

I am lucky to know many of the 108 women honored here personally. My respect for this group could not be higher. Most of the “Notable Women in Computing” group have been role models and mentors to generations of students and rising professionals. When I have served on the selection committees for TechWomen Emerging Leaders, one of the most common hopes I read in their application essays is for an opportunity to give back to their community and to help girls learn to use and love technology. I have also heard this aspiration over and over from my own amazing TechWomen mentees.

Please help spread the news of these amazing technical leaders. In August 2013, I wrote about Getting Beyond Marie Curie – developing information and awareness about other great women tole models. Here are 108.

Both Posters: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 U.S. License

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

Tagged as Africa, Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jessica, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, technical women, TechWomen, Tunisia, Yemen, Zimbabwe

January 8, 2015 · 3:49 pm

Thanks Symantec! TechWomen Emerging Leaders Poster

As of January 2015, these cards and posters are available for sale on Notable Technical Women.

Thanks to Eileen Brewer, Symantec is donating the printing for the first edition of the “TechWomen Emerging Leaders” poster – enough for us to take on the South Africa Delegation later this month! Thanks also to Jessica Dickinson Goodman (my capable and talented daughter) for designing the poster and cards. And, of course, thanks to the 54 TechWomen Emerging Leaders from 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East for being our amazing honorees! I am proud and honored to work with some of the most intelligent and accomplished technical women there are.