 Hi everyone, we are so excited to be here. I'm Aria Churnick, and I am open learning. And I am Mary Hemphill, and I am computer science. We are not only living in the fourth industrial revolution, but we're living in an exciting time when technology is disrupting every industry on Earth. And as technology will continue to transform our world, we know that computer science and computational thinking are truly going to be critical for the success of our students, as well as us as humans living in this world. And North Carolina is in a unique position because this past June, the State Board has allowed for computer science to be added to the North Carolina standard course of study. So what does that mean? That means that 1.5 million students across our state are going to have the opportunity to be immersed in computer science when it comes to teaching and learning. And we're in a unique position because if we get this right, it's going to have huge impact for not only our minority students, but also our female students as well. And there are many organizations that have already put their stake in the ground when it comes to fighting the disparities of gender and equity in the computer science space. In fact, Code.org classrooms have balanced classrooms when it comes to race, gender, and socioeconomics, which is why the North Carolina Computer Science Initiative is going to be based in K-12. We're going to start with kindergarten and take them all the way through their public education career because we know that females who take computer science in high school are 10 times more likely to major in it in college. And this is a great time because we know that if we are going to create education for 21st century students, they have the opportunity to make 22nd century impact if we can get it right. So let's get it right. We have got to get this right. This is an enormous opportunity for North Carolina. So what does it look like to get it right? Well, it looks open source. So many of you are very familiar with these guiding principles of open source, probably from a developer perspective and software development communities. So we're here to talk just for a couple more minutes about what it looks like to integrate these kinds of open source values into educational contexts and what happens when we do. And I can tell you from personal experience I've been doing this work at Duke University, it is transformational. If we are going to truly shatter the outdated and unfortunately often dehumanizing system of education that we know today, we have got to use an open source approach to do it. So specifically thinking about collaboration, community and inclusivity, Mary and I have partnered me at Duke University and Mary at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. We've partnered also with IBM offering their design skills in a truly cross-sector collaboration. So we're designing some of this open source computer science curriculum. But more than that, we are also designing this community co-creation where we're using open design to think about what are the stakeholders really need across our state. So some of that work in open source K-12 CS education curricula and professional development, it's open source in terms of the resources that will be available, but it's open source in approach because we know that the only way to really integrate that inclusivity that we care so much about into this computer science curricula is to make it open source. And in order to do that, we have created hashtag I am computer science. It is going to feature North Carolina women in North Carolina computer science industries from cybersecurity to analytics, from big data to IT and computer science education. And hopefully what we want is for our female students, the 1.5 million girls across the state to see themselves in this campaign and to be inspired. But in order to do that, what are some ways that we can make sure that we are getting it right in North Carolina? So there are little things you can tweet and that really does make a difference. Help us build the open source platform that we need to share and scale this work. Sponsor us, sponsor a student. And dance with the pink elephant. It is time for our female students to have new solutions to old 21st century problems. And so instead of talking around the pink elephant, let's invite it to dance, to create, to shatter these glass ceilings, to reimagine and redesign what they look like. We know that the kindergartners who started school this past August are the graduating class of 2034. And Andrea Gascon, who is the CEO and founder of Girls in Tech, said, Our work is not done until a female name is as synonymous with tech as Steve Jobs until women are on the cover of computer science notebooks and until people assume that founder, techie and CEO is a she.