Tag: women who tech

Why We Need More Women In Tech

Women and girls still face a lot of obstacles in shaping technologies. The digital gender divide might be getting worse. Women and girls everywhere are missing, underrepresented, and dropping out from technology fields. As a result,  today’s tech – and increasingly today’s world – does not reflect the diversity of women’s experiences or ingenuity.

This isn’t fair, it’s not treating people like you want to be treated.

Beyond that, I’ve observed that technology is improved when women and girls have equal access. That’s pretty much common sense, since tech talent has no gender bias, and I’ve got over forty years working with women engineers and programmers that proves it. (We need a lot more, and in the U.S. we’re talking about a renewed emphasis on STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — education.)

Too often, women in STEM get little acknowledgement for the work they’re doing. As a nerd, it’s my philosophy that everyone gets a fair chance to be heard. It’s one of the reasons I started craigconnects.org. Earlier this year, I shared some big news: for the first time, in 2014,  women outnumbered men in a UC Berkeley Computer Science course. We need to continue supporting trends like this. It’s really important, folks.

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All this is why I’ve added my voice as an advocate to Global Fund for Women’s petition with UN Women calling for an end to the global gender technology gap. I wrote more about it over on HuffPo…

Specifically, I’m adding my name to call on the United Nations, governments around the world, and key decision makers to remove all barriers to the development and use of technology, increase investment in girls’ science and technology education around the world, and ensure women’s and girls’ full participation as developers and innovators.

Join me and add your signature to the Global Fund for Women and UN Women’s petition. Let’s make our call loud — we want to reach 20,000 signatures by March 5 in time to deliver the petition for International Women’s Day on March 8th.

Tell your colleagues, friends, and social networks that their signature can make a difference in shaping the type of future we live in.

5 women bloggers you really need to follow

Hey, I don’t think women are noted frequently enough for their accomplishments. Women dominate social media and have a huge impact in the blogosphere, but aren’t always recognized.

My team and I compiled a list of women bloggers who are the real deal. You should follow these folks on Twitter, and check out their blogs. These women are on top of of the latest tech news, nonprofit strategies, and social media trends.

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5 Women Bloggers to Follow:

Xeni Jardin is an editor and blogger for Boing Boing, a web zine they describe as being “devoted to the weird, wonderful and wicked things to be found in technology and culture.” Independent for nearly 25 years, they publish a daily mix of short articles, long features, and video productions.


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Beth Kanter is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. Beth has over 30 years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, capacity building, evaluation, fundraising, and marketing.


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Shelly Kramer blogs about internet marketing, social media, and tech at V3, a full service integrated marketing, digital communications and social media agency.


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Kara Swisher is co-CEO of Revere Digital, co-executive editor and blogger for Re/code, and co-executive producer of The Code Conference. Re/code is an independent tech news, reviews and analysis site. Because everything in tech and media is constantly being rethought, refreshed, and renewed, Re/code’s aim is to reimagine tech journalism.


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Amy Vernon is the author of Dear Amy. Amy is among the top 15 contributors of all time on Digg.com (and the highest-ranked female ever), and is recognized for her knowledge of writing, community, and social media.


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Who would you add to this list? What women bloggers do you have bookmarked on your reading list?//

15 Women in Tech to Follow on Twitter

Hey, a coupla weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the Top 10 Women in Tech orgs. And recently, a lot of folks have been talking about the importance of women’s leadership in tech. The Women’s Media Center released a report with two big data points:

  • At its current pace, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles in government/politics, business, entrepreneurship, and nonprofits.
  • Only 17 women at media and technology companies are on Fortune’s 50 most powerful women in business list.

I’m no expert, but I do have suggestions for some women in tech who really have their boots on the ground, and are doing good work. You should check out their work, support ’em if you’re able, and follow them on Twitter.

craig16womenintech

(in alphabetical order…)

Kimberly Bryant, @6Gems: Founder of Black Girls Code. Black Girls Code purpose is to increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. Kimberly is an engineer, social entrepreneur, technology junkie, and dreamer.


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Shaherose Charania, @shaherose: CEO, Co-Founder, and President of Women 2.0. At heart Shaherose is a mobile and telephony junkie. She’s led new consumer products at Ribbit (BT). Previously, she was Director of Product Management at Talenthouse and JAJAH (sold to Telefonica/O2). Shaherose holds a B.A. in Business Admin from The University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business.


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Sara Chipps, @SaraJChipps: Co-Founder, software developer, and organizer of Girl Develop It, which teaches women how to develop applications from start to finish. The org empowers women of diverse backgrounds from around the world to learn how to develop software. Sara is also the CTO of Levo League, where she focuses on developer happiness as a metric for success.


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Kaliya Hamlin, @identitywoman: Founder of She’s Geeky, which began as a haven where women who self-identify as geeky could meet in person to support, educate, and share experiences with one another. Kaliya is also Founder of the Personal Data Ecosystem, and is one of the leading experts in the emerging personal data ecosystem and user-centric digital identity.


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Mary Hodder, @Maryhodder: Mary works in privacy and personal data technologies, and is also working on an Android rewrite for privacy (with crowdfunding to finance it). She founded Dabble.com in 2005, a social search site that helps people organize and playlist media they like, while discovering great media through other’s recommendations.


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Allyson Kapin, @womenwhotech: Founder of Women Who Tech and Rad Campaign, a web agency that develops websites for nonprofit organizations, foundations, and political campaigns. Allyson is also the co-author of the book Social Change Anytime Everywhere, published by Wiley. Allyson has been a featured expert on media outlets ranging from CNN to the BBC for her insight on tech and social media trends.


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Sian Morson, @xianamoy: Founder and CEO of Kollective Mobile, a mobile development agency that helps start-ups design and grow their mobile business by providing strategy consulting and building mobile apps. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Sian makes video art, speaks about technology and mobile, and writes about culture and tech.


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Holly Ross, @drupalhross: Executive Director of the Drupal Association, an educational nonprofit organization that fosters and supports the Drupal software project, the community, and its growth. Holly has a passion for change and has led a career focused on helping nonprofits create more of it.


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Rashmi Sinha, @Rashmi: Co-Founder of SlideShare which was acquired by LinkedIn. Rashmi focuses on product strategy and design. Before SlideShare, she built MindCanvas, a game-like survey platform for customer research. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Brown University and conducted research on search engines and recommender systems at UC Berkeley.


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Wendy Tan, @wendytanwhite: Co-Founder & CEO of Moonfruit, a design-control DIY website and shop builder; recently acquired by Hibu. Wendy is also a 500 Startups mentor. Wendy writes extensively about the need for greater support and recognition for female entrepreneurs and women in business.


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Amra Tareen, @amratareen: CEO of LittleCast, a mobile app and web platform that allows users to sell videos directly on Facebook. Prior to LittleCast, Amra, a former telecom engineer who grew up in Pakistan and Australia, earned a Harvard M.B.A., then joined venture capital outfit Sevin Rosen Funds, where she became a partner, and then left when she founded AllVoices, a citizen news site.


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Kristy Tillman, @KristyT: Designer, Developer, and a Media Ideation Fellow. Kristy is building Project Phonebooth, a mobile app that aims to make applying to local government jobs easier for those who rely on mobile technology to access the Internet.


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Padmasree Warrior, @padmasree: CTO of Cisco. Padmasree helps direct technology and operational innovation across the company and oversees strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, the integration of new business models, the incubation of new technologies, and the cultivation of world-class technical talent.


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Dr. Umit Yalcinalp, @umityalcinalp: Dr. Umit Yalcinalp is a former Software Architect turned Salesforce.com Evangelist with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and is a self-described “seasoned technologist, fashionista geek and web technology veteran.” You can read Dr Yalcinalp’s blog at WS Dudette.


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Who would you like to see on this list? Let me know in the comment section. Thanks!

 

code is power: Girls Who Code

Okay, I was chatting with Reshma Saujani from Girls Who Code, providing modest social media help, and blurted out that “code is power.” Here’s the deal. 

The easiest way to power is to be born into a family with privilege and elite status. You get more influence by building networks, and far too often, by preventing powerless people from getting ahead. You have to be cautionary: bad actors will try to hijack good efforts, like nonprofits who tell a good story and disappear with the money.

The vast majority of people anywhere don’t usually have much of a voice or any influence. Usually, regular people, the grassroots, only manage to acquire power when they use technology to work together. The technology enables people to magnify their team power, acting as a force multiplier. They can get people to the streets, and raise money.

Most importantly, folks can create the perception that their cause is an idea that’s the right thing at the right time. Victor Hugo observed that there’s nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Girls Who Code is a nonprofit that teaches under-served girls how to computer program, funded by Google, eBay, GE, and many others. These folks know code as a form of expression, the 21st century way of expressing yourself and your identity. The girls are creating apps to communicate with each other and their communities.

George R. R. Martin observes that a girl is powerful if other girls perceive her as powerful. (As a nerd, I figure I can paraphrase Game of Thrones.)

That is, historically speaking, power and influence is driven by money and coalition building, kind of small scale networking.

Sometimes, grassroots leaders need to invent or repurpose tech to get anywhere. Ben Franklin invented the post office (store and forward network) and used the printing press. Martin Luther used the press, the existing church store, and forward network. St. Paul built the church network.

Then there’s Ada Lovelace who took notes that contained what’s considered the first computer program — that is, an algorithm encoded for processing by a machine. Anita Borg’s responsible for including women in the tech revolution, and founded the Systers online community in 1987, much before online communities were part of the mainstream. Marissa Mayer was the first female engineer hired at Google and one of their first 20 employees in 1999. (Hey, Marissa, I still use Pine!)

All these folks used tech to build grassroots networks to great effect. They’re what we now call “bloggers.”

Now we’ve got the Internet, held together with code, infrastructure where people can build tools which unite regular people for collective influence. The Net tends to level the playing field, and that tendency only increases over time.

That is, the Internet is dramatically lowering the cost of influence and power.

Women Who Tech is doing good stuff with women in the tech world. Diversifying the tech sector’s the main inspiration behind the Women Who Tech TeleSummit. The philosophy is: “If we are going to truly create technology and products for the masses, the tech world must be inclusive of all perspectives.” It goes right back to influence and empowerment. @WomenWhoTech created an infographic that shows how women really influence technology.

My own contribution was based on code I wrote between 1995 and 1999, starting with a desire to give back to the community. It’s worked out okay, and has helped maybe a hundred million people, or more, mostly Americans.

Any influence I get from that, well, I just don’t need or really want; I’ve got what I need, like a really good shower and my own parking place. Instead, I use my meager influence on behalf of the stuff I believe in. You’ll see me either pushing the good work of people who get stuff done, or indulging my sense of humor. (Note to self: I’m not as funny as I think I am.)

To be sure, I don’t feel this is altruistic or noble, it’s just that a nerd’s gotta do what a nerd’s gotta do.

My thing, craigslist, was accidental. It ran much better after people helped me understand that as a manager, I suck, and I got someone smarter to run things. I devoted myself to customer service, but I’ll only be doing that as long as I live.

If you want to see someone building code that might drive very large scale influence, consider Stefani Germanotta, and something called Backplane. She already unites tens of millions of people from the grassroots, people who’ve never had a voice or any power, the “little monsters.” Backplane might be the force multiplier that might really work for the disenfranchised.

It’s quite possible that Ms. Germanotta might become one of the most powerful humans on that planet; don’t underestimate her. I like the idea, while I’m no little monster, as a nerd I’m the 1950’s equivalent of one.

You can use platforms like Facebook to exert influence by building a network and getting people to Share your cause via your social network. We’re really talking about your “social graph,” that is, your friends or Subscribers, and then, their friends and Subscribers.

If you can code, though, you can build something like an app to magnify your influence, doing the force multiplier thing. The deal is, code really is power.

I don’t code anymore, so I’m considering that I should commission the following force multiplier.

If you want to preserve your right to vote, you need to exercise it. It’s “use it or lose it”. Take that literally.

I need an app where:

    1. You commit to voting.
    2. You’re told what you need to do to prepare to vote.
    3. Your commitment is recorded, privately and securely.
    4. The commitment is propagated through your social network, with a reminder that everyone should vote.
    5. You’re reminded to vote, by mail or in person, at the right time…
    6. …when you do so, that’s recorded.
    7. The act of voting is also shared via your social net, reminding friends to vote.

So, #2 functionality is already available.

#4/5/7 require the code to be mildly annoying, just like me. (Note from
editor: “mildly”?)

Hey, @GirlsWhoCode, looking for a good test case?

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