Tag Archives: TechWomen

February 18, 2012 · 12:39 am

Silicon Valley Supports Technical Women

In the last week, I have been to three interesting events supporting technical women and girls here in the Silicon Valley:

FountainBlue’s When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series panel on Work-Life Balance, featuring Huawei Human Resources Director Jane Helfen, hosted by Symantec
The Institute for International Education and Anita Borg Institute mentor recruiting event for the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen 2012 mentoring program for women in the Middle East and North Africa, hosted by Microsoft
Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s Women and Girls Leadership Summit, held at Clyde Fischer Middle School, San Jose (sponsored by Huawei, among many others)

It feels good to have strong support from such a wide variety of organizations for women in technology.

Images by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

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Tagged as Geeks, Huawei, Mentoring, Middle East, San Jose, Silicon Valley, technical women, TechWomen

February 14, 2012 · 9:14 pm

TechWomen 2012 Applications

The Institute for International Education and Anita Borg Institute are again working together on the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen mentoring program for women in the Middle East and North Africa. Yesterday, Microsoft hosted the Mentor recruitment kick-off event, including a video of invitation and welcome by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, plus an in-person address by Lee Satterfield, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Professional and Cultural Exchanges at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Dozens of technical women from Silicon Valley technical companies attended. It was wonderful to catch up with the 2011 mentors, listen to the panel, and meet potential new 2012 participants.

Women working in technology fields from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, and Yemen are encouraged to apply to be TechWomen mentees – Applications are due February 15, 2012. The TechWomen Mentor Application Opens March 1, 2012

It was fun to see the What is TechWomen? video (in which I was one of the speakers!) and to discover my picture at the top of the 2012 mentor handout for the event. This year’s TechWomen mentees will all be going to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (3-6 October 2012 in Baltimore Maryland).

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January 25, 2012 · 11:39 pm

Wrought Iron Window Grates

As regular readers know, I am fond of both public art and especially metal work. I took many pictures of the ornamental ironwork window coverings when I was in Morocco late last year. I even saw some urban blacksmiths at work on the street. Last weekend, during a visit to the Northern California’s Wine Country, I was amused to see small weathered Tunisian window grates for sale as decorations for $95 to $490 per. What a difference a little travel makes!

Images 2011-2012 Copyright Katy Dickinson

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Tagged as Middle East, TechWomen

November 12, 2011 · 11:20 am

Hopper Conference, Portland Oregon

This is the final day for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing here in Portland, with a focus on Open Source. As usual, the Hopper Conference has been an exhilarating experience, recharging me for another year of technical business in an overwhelmingly male industry. Also, as usual, the 3,000 attendees with several computers each regularly overwhelmed the local net, so I have mostly been tweeting rather than blogging this week.

My husband John and daughter Jessica are both here. Jessica presented a panel and poster. Jessica asked me what was my favorite GHC11 event. The most memorable was yesterday’s keynote by The Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Jackson’s talk was not flashy but I came away with several new ideas and energetic motivation to follow up. The other conference highlight was the celebration of the TechWomen mentees, mentors, and program. I am so proud of my sisters from MENA!

I am proud that Huawei joined NetApp and Google in sponsoring TechWomen mentees to come to the Hopper Conference (and Huawei paid for the third Huawei-Santa Clara-hosted mentee to come too). Corporate community support at its best!

Yesterday, on behalf of the ABI Advisory Board, I was honored to introduce the presentation of two-time GHC award-winner Anne Ikiara of Kenya. She gave an inspiring talk about her organization NairoBits, which has given computer training to 6,000 poor young women in ten years for a cost of about $100/each. So impressive – I want to be her when I grow up.

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Tagged as Geeks, Huawei, Jessica, John, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

November 9, 2011 · 11:51 pm

Hopper Conference – Day 1, Portland Oregon

Today is the opening of the sold-out GHC11 – the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing here in Portland, Oregon. My contribution to the world’s greatest conference for technical women came early: attending the ABI Advisory Board meeting this morning and inviting Janet Abbate, Assistant Professor, Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech, to be one of the panel at the Hopper Conference Newcomer’s orientation this afternoon. Other than that, I am mostly hanging out with my daughter Jessica and the TechWomen mentees and mentors and staff. I am also representing Huawei, one of the sponsors of the scholarships to bring some of the TechWomen mentees to GHC11.

The flight north from the San Francisco Bay Area this morning was spectacular: we flew directly over a massive, cloudless and snowy Mount Shasta and smaller wintery mountains. Between GHC events, we plan to sample the delights of this pleasant town: this morning we ate Voodoo Doughnuts and tomorrow we plan to go to Powells City of Books. Jessica presents her panel and poster tomorrow afternoon.

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October 26, 2011 · 8:26 pm

Happy Birthday Hillary!

Today is the birthday of the champion of the TechWomen mentoring program, US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I was reading today’s poem offered by The Writer’s Alamanac and noticed their happy birthday wishes for her as the author of two popular books.

Also today, one of the TechWomen launched the first coupon discount web site in Algeria, one of a dozen or more new ventures and non-profits already started by the 37 mentees since their return to their homes in the Middle East and North Africa in July. What an astonishing, accomplished, and supportive group has been created by Hillary Clinton’s program. A grand birthday present indeed!

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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.