 And welcome to start the girls off right, how you can help girls get interested in technology. I'm joined today with three such girls who have various stories to share with us about how they were interested in technology. But most important, what we really wanted to talk about is what you can do to make more girls interested in this path and this opportunity. So let's start by introducing our panelists. Chloe, please introduce yourself really quick. Hi everyone, I'm Chloe. I'm a final year physics student studying at University of Wolverhampton in the UK. I'm a Zen ambassador and I'm passionate about all things tech for good. Fantastic. And Lella, please introduce yourself. Yeah, hello, I'm Lella and 16 years old and based in North Yorkshire in England as well. I'm extremely passionate for all things kind of tech for good, as Chloe said, and also tech accessibility. So later on, we'll tell you a bit about the Zen student series, which we believe is one step closer to access for all. Great. And Caitlin, please introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Caitlin. I'm in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I'm a first year computer science student at the University of Utah. Great. And? Oh, and I'm one of the North American regional winners for Master of the Mainframe 2019. 12 in the whole world out of 25,000 people that tried. So that is a huge accomplishment and one of only two who were in high school when they won this. So competing against university students, it's a huge, huge win. So thank you ladies. And before we dive in here, I want to remind everyone that's listening to us today that this session is really focused on things you can do. This is not meant to be a passive sit and listen. Oh, isn't that lovely? And then move on to your cup of tea. This is meant to be take out your pen, make notes. This is what I can personally do to help move the needle on this issue. And I know you care about this issue because you're listening right now. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be here. So there are little things that you can do and there are big things that you can do. And we invite you to join us in this adventure. I do want to say that a lot of this is based on the research. Researchers have studied what it is that can help get girls into STEM and technology. That research, those points that we're gonna point out are generalizations. Every girl is different. Every human being is different. So when we say most girls, we mean most girls. We don't mean all girls. And so remember, there are always exceptions. And the next thing is that a lot of these tips, as we were going through this, we realized many of these tips really can be used for any underserved, underrepresented groups. Some of these actions are about making girls realize that they are welcome and that there are other people like them. And those same issues affect people of other diversity groups. So please keep, if those are issues that you care about and you wanna help, keep your handy pen and make notes of the things that you can do for other diversity groups as well. And I wanna make sure that even though we're talking about getting girls in STEM, there is a role for everyone, men as well. We need your help to solve this problem. So men are not just welcome, you are essential. So thank you everybody for joining us. Let's go to our first point. And the first point here is girls first see themselves as not technical around age 10 to 14. And that means that's the age that we lose them. So all of these actions that we're doing in university and in high school, you have a higher hill to climb. It's a bigger challenge to convince a girl that she can do this after she's already decided in middle school in those middle ages that she is not technical and that this is not for her. So some of the things that you can do here is started girls only tech club, especially in these ages. This is peak hormones now. So working with boys and girls at the same times, there's some awkwardness going on there just because of the ages, right? They're awkward. So giving them a place where they don't feel self-conscious. So this is the age to have gender-separated activities. You can do clubs, you can do workshops and recognition in front of their peers so that not only is that really good for the girl herself who's done something amazing like Caitlin did but it's good for all of the other girls in that room because they can see themselves in her. The other thing I really wanna point out is when I talk to these ladies, none of them saw the activities that they did in this age as formative. It's not a big deal at this age. They don't see it as the turning point but they can all refer back to how they had technology accessible to them and enabled to them at this age. So that is a very interesting point. And Caitlin, I love your story about setting up Minecraft servers and what motivated you at this age to just start playing around with technology? So why don't you share that story with us? When I was in middle school, it was in the middle of like the Minecraft craze and stuff. So I really just wanted to play Minecraft with my friends, you know? And I didn't wanna have to do it on a public server. I just wanted to have like, I wanted to be able to have like just a little Minecraft world with all of my friends. So I ended up looking up how to make a Minecraft server and it's probably one of the most simple little projects like a kid can do. But just that little bit of like messing around with servers just kind of turned into me taking it up a level each time that I made one, trying to make them better and better. And then next thing I knew, I was like really wanting to do programming and it just kind of all snowballed from just wanting to play some games with my friends. And you know what I love about this story, Caitlin is that I hear this over and over again as I work with students is that an interest in gaming led to an interest in controlling the game or creating your own game, which then led to an interest in programming in general. So it is a really great subtle on ramp. Robotics is another great, very subtle roadmap and there's lots of really fun things you can do in this area. So thank you. Let's move to number two. In a girl, especially in girls, I think in everyone, but especially in girls, your silence becomes her self-doubt. So if you don't say something positive, she'll interpret that as I did something bad or maybe I'm not good enough. So some tips of how you can support girls with just your words. Now this is something anyone can do. If you see something good, say it. It's that simple, but be careful of the words you're use, okay? Because one of the things we've seen is you're good at this for a girl and that sends the message that girls aren't generally good at this. So you think you're playing a compliment but you are giving them a subconscious message that you are not intending to give. So the best way to give a compliment is to be very specific, not you're good at this or wow, that's smart, which is great, that's good, but better is that's a really great way to solve that problem. I would not have thought of that. So be specific about what they did. You did a really good job of combining the technology and why it matters, right? So these things are a much better compliment and give them something they can build on. And Chloe, you and Lella are working on a whole bunch of stuff about this community of students supporting students and giving this positive feedback in the student hub. Would you tell us a little bit about the student hub? Okay, yeah, I'll start. So over the summer, both Lella and I are IBM Z, Global Student Hub senators. And we realized that there's a real need to having a sort of more student voice out there for connections with the industry. And so we created this online webinar series where we're having more student input and speaking to students and getting feedback directly from them, giving them the opportunity to speak and ask questions and then really acting on the things that they learn with something we were really passionate about and we think had a really great impact. The feedback we were getting from the students after the webinars was really encouraging knowing that watching these sessions and that we were putting on, spending hours doing wars, having a meaningful impact on them and inspiring them to go further into the field. That's great. That's a great story. And for all of you listening, the student hub is targeted towards students but I encourage you all to join. It's IBM.biz slash student hub, all in worry. And it's a great place for you to participate and to support the students but you can learn about events and activities that you can then share with the girl. Remember, keep your pen out, find things to do. All right, let's move on to number three. Girls are more motivated by purpose. So this was an interesting thing they found in research. If you throw a robot on a table in the middle of a bunch of boys, they're like, oh, cool, a robot and they just start messing around with it. Girls are like, okay, it's a robot, that's kind of cool but they don't get really excited until you say, let's see if we can make the robot do this. Pick up pills for a senior citizen, something with a purpose. So the best way to get girls interested in technology is not to show them the technology but to give them that purpose. Real world activities in particular are very useful and remember that girls have a wide range of interests. So pair the technology project with what they're interested in. So if they're interested in art, you can do a digital art project. If they're interested in sports, you can do a project where you're using technology to map the motion of the leg as it kicks a ball. So really try to focus on something that is going to feel like they're doing something real and meaningful. And in terms of real world, I do have to put a plug in for the program that I run, which is Master of the Mainframe. They are doing real technology on a real mainframe, real world and you can join that as an adult learner, as a non-student learner and definitely encourage all of your students to join. Masterthemainframe.com for every student that finishes level one, IBM donates to the UN World Food Program. So there's your purpose. And I've heard this story recently. There was a girl in college who had never been exposed to technology and had already decided she wasn't technical. Remember, back in middle school, I'm not technical. And she was a marketing major and her friend invited her to do Master of the Mainframe because she wanted to donate to children. After finishing level one, she found out, wow, I actually like this. And she continued on to level two and is earning credentials and badges and it is transforming her life. So Master of the Mainframe is one of those great, easy on ramps, get them excited about feeding children and then the ones that have an interest in it will grow from there. So speaking of technology for good, I know this is a passion of yours, Lellis. So why don't you talk a little bit about technology for good and using that to get other girls interested? Yeah, from a very young age, I've always been obviously interested in technology but had a real, I was always keen to also explore history and geography. We'd always traveled as a family and saw different cultures that different people around the world were living in. I think that definitely brought to my scope many aspects. And over the past six months in particular, when having Melissa Sassi as my mentor, many of you will probably know, we kind of explored tech for good together. I'd done some projects on a startup and participating in Code the Curve, which was a hackathon based around the pandemic, powered by like SAP, UNESCO, IBM, really looking to find a solution that was powered by students and what I particularly liked was this thing about it being for hackers, hustlers, hipsters and humanitarians. I think that the way that hackathon is often branded can be really kind of, oh, what are we hacking? Are we being illegal? You know, there's a real kind of presumption around that kind of jargon. So having it kind of centered to everyone and anyone, and particularly with the humanitarian focus has been really, really inspiring. As well as that with my local Code Club, I think I'll probably go into this a bit more later on, but we looked at developing an app for a homeless community that are nearby. So we partner with a supermarket to create an app that identifies the food left over at the supermarkets and send like alert the food banks and the homeless shelters that they can come and collect that and so much more. And I just think that when you show technology as something that's just beyond having to be coding all day or be really, really technical, you will suddenly see that so many more people are interested in it. And I can't remember the stat exactly, but it's a large majority of jobs. And I think increasingly so will require these digital skills in the future. So looking at hackathons, looking at projects with purpose, looking at the student hub and the different discussions that we've had on there will just show you that it's really kind of tech beyond what we call the textbooks and the way the school curriculum is and also tech beyond kind of the code showing you that the impact that your code and your tech skills can have. Great. I love this story and I love how engaged you all have been in tech for good. It really has been amazing. Let's move on to number four. Parents really do have an influence on their kids and you think the kids aren't listening, but they are and your opinions of tech and opinions of girls in tech really makes the difference. And the thing that I found really interesting in the research is a researcher found that a father has actually a larger influence. A technical father has a larger influence on a girl getting into tech than a technical mother which is counterintuitive. And so I encourage everyone, especially the men listening today to advocate to girls to encourage them using those words we talked about earlier. And whether you're encouraging your own child you can consider to adopt a girl. Another girl that is not your own child and be a mentor to her and encourage her and celebrate her successes. And I love this story of Caitlyn's about her parents were supportive but it was a friend of her parents that was really technical that had an impact on giving her that empowerment to explore on her own. Caitlyn, would you tell us this story about a family friend? Yeah, so basically my parents have always been very supportive of my interest in tech but neither of them are very technical themselves. Basically my family got invited to a barbecue that's from like one of my mom's work friends and stuff. The husband of my mom's friend just started pulling out all these different like techy stuff for me to play with and then we did like a little like tech project. I don't know, it's happened so many times where he's just decided, all right, this is the project we're doing for this dinner party type thing. But I know one of them was like making a website another one was making a game emulator on a raspberry pie. And then it ended up being like super glitchy. I still have it somewhere, I just don't know where. So this is a great story because, you know, he could have just done the usual hi, nice to meet you daughter of my friends but instead he wouldn't be on that instead of saying show me your Barbies. He said, let me show you this tech and let's see what we can play around with. So I love this story because this is something anyone can do. All right, let's move on to number five. And I wanna stress that there is a huge role for women in tech, women already in STEM in solving this problem. As I'm sure you already know, you probably already feel the pressure of being visible and present to women behind you. And that is so important. Still today, 78% of girls cannot name a famous woman in technology. So it is upon all of us who are already in tech to step forward and be visible. And there's lots of ways you can do that. You can show up just as a guest speaker to all sorts of events. If you're not comfortable speaking, you can show up as a helper. Just being there, walking around and saying, oh, see you missed a comma here. It seems like a small thing, but it's huge because you're establishing yourself as somebody that is technically competent and a female. And encourage girls to do exploratories. So an exploratory is just a 30 minute conversation. What is it you do for a living? If you're a female in tech, make yourself available to girls to have that conversation, to just talk about what it is that you do. What is it like to be a woman in tech? What is it like to be a data analyst? What is it like to be a hardware engineer? They don't have visibility to that. And I love it that they can hear the story from you as a woman in tech, rather than reading it from a textbook or a website. So, Lella, you have a wide variety of mentors. Why don't you tell us about a few of them and how they play a role in your career growth here, your path? Sure, so I went to my first hackathon when I was 12 years old. Naturally, I stood out simply because the second oldest, the youngest person there was probably 21 or something. So when I was at that hackathon, it was a woman in STEM one based in Dubai who naturally had this kind of can-do kind of environment and feel about the country. I just feel like it was all about innovation, all about change. So naturally, a lot of people did come over to me and say, whoa, how old are you? Like, are you alone here? And like completely shocked, thinking maybe I was a daughter of someone helping out or a daughter of someone participating. But no, I was part of a team and I probably led a group of university students, which sounds really crazy. But having female mentors kind of is a stepping stone into kind of bridging the gap that I do feel is there between industry in the classroom, having someone who, as you said, can support you or guide you in the right direction or suggest you a career opportunity or path that you may consider going down really is inspirational. And it kind of gives you a lot of more confidence and makes you feel less of kind of an imposter in the community. I think that even when we did the Zed student series on the student hub, it feels crazy to think that I've engaged with like what was it, 1.5 case students from around the globe from the comfort of my own home. But it's been the female mentors and the people who brought me on conferences and calls like you, Misty, that have really made that difference because it makes me think, whoa, I can do this and I've had the ability to do this, this and this. So it really helps back up what you want to achieve and gives you a lot, lot more support, which I feel is just so important and such a privilege to have, especially at a young age where I'm still so indecisive as to what it is I want to do in the future. Like as I said, tech for good has been a new path of open. I've explored from a mentor. Gov Tech has been another area and there are all things that I probably wouldn't have discovered without a mentor or without that kind of gateway into industry. It's amazing, right? And I have to tell you as someone that mentors girls myself is that I have found it so fulfilling it really has made a huge difference. So I encourage everyone to do that. And if you want to participate in a master the mainframe event, you can just join master the mainframe and we announce ways in that hub how you can use master the mainframe as the basis of an event, but also how you can volunteer to attend one of those events. We have lots of these events going around the world at all times. Let's move on to number six and seven together to save a little bit of time here and they're very related. Number six, educators have limited visibility to fast changing technology. It's hard for me and it's my job to keep up with what's going on in technology and all of the changes. So it's so important for you to engage with them and help them to understand what is important for the students today to be learning because their technology and their curriculum, it takes several years for it to go through the process of approval. And so today, the best they could possibly be doing is teaching what was most current three years ago. So by the time they're teaching it, it's already outdated just by the process of how building curriculum, getting it approved and updating what's being taught in the schools. So focus on those things outside of school and bring these activities to them and help them understand out of this huge, huge world what is most important. And at least the United States, but I understand it's very similar in Europe is only 35% of high schools offer any kind of computer science at all. And there's a lot of issues with preventing them from being able to adapt it. The speed of technology is only one part of it. The shortage of teachers and there's just a lot that you wanna teach students and you have to make hard choices. So listen to them, listen to what their local challenges in that school are and try to help them solve those problems. Make connections to the local employers because companies want to hire these students. And so they're gonna be motivated to engage with the school and help support anything going on. If you can't get through the school, go to a club and go to an organization. I've even gone to public libraries that are often really looking for content and wanna make a difference for students and there's less bureaucracy. And the last tip is that students really do motivate educators. Educators will bend over backwards for a student who wants to take the lead and start a club or lead a workshop. And I know that this industry engaging in the schools is huge passion of yours, Lella. So I'm gonna give you the floor again, a second time in a row so that you can speak on your soapbox here and there. Yeah, I think as you said, there is this massive gap between industry and the classroom and it's something that I go on about on Zed students and basically to anyone in industry that I speak to. And I think it's such a large factor that demotivates people into going into tech. They think that having a career in tech looks like what the textbooks do and as you said, they're so out of date and I think it's great that industry to give the curriculum and schools that I think that they are trying, they have moved from ICT which is like Office 365 skills to more of the basics of Python and things. However, the theory is what really makes people fall asleep and get demotivated by it. They don't wanna learn about how a printer works to eight different steps. They wanna learn the practical skills that will be applicable to the careers of the future. And I always say like, what better way to do that than to bring industry into the classroom? I think that tech really should reflect what the outside world does look like and the computer science classroom needs to be like that. So I think having opportunities to participate in hackathons and to local clubs be part of these different projects and opportunities is absolutely wonderful. It definitely has been a privilege to be part of myself and it only has been when I've told my peers about the experience that I've had with mentors or hackathons that they do realize, huh, this tech thing really does sound like a cool job to be part of because they just don't see it until you really open their eyes to it. So whether that's you starting your own club, you telling someone to attend a local hackathon or you simply just saying, hey, there's this webinar on the student hub, go check it out. I think that can just make such a massive difference and we've had people say to us after events, like, whoa, I didn't, yeah, I didn't know that was part of tech or the way Melissa spoke about tech for good made me realize that maybe I don't need to learn how to code. You know, it's just, it's so eye-opening and can make place such a big part in people's decisions. And I just really wish that it was more of a common opportunity for people to be part of. I think that during lockdown, having things online has been absolutely wonderful. It kind of has provided a bit more accessibility. I know, again, being online is another lucky thing to have, but I think that it just has enabled people to really see what the tech world looks like a more easier, a more accessible way. So I think just definitely recommend it. I couldn't have said it any better. So, and as somebody in industry that works with schools, you know, you get varying response. And number eight explains some of that. Just as girls often see themselves as not technical, educators often see themselves as not technical and they resist you coming in offering technology workshops or guest lectures because they're afraid of feeling stupid. And so, but they won't tell you that. So I have had varying success, but I have some tips for you. The first is to acknowledge and let them know that there is no way they can understand technology like you do. And just say it upfront, you're an expert in education and I don't know anything about education, but I do know about technology and I would like to help you reach your students. And they're afraid to try it themselves. So maybe do some work by teaching the teacher and make them feel more confident and bring volunteers to help with your activity so the educator doesn't feel responsible for answering student questions. That's one of the things that we do in Master of the Mainframe. We have a lot of teachers that use it as a assigned homework assignment. They don't know any of the technology. We answer all of the student questions in our Slack and as questions come in, we answer them and the teacher doesn't have to do anything other than assign it and it give them the points. So as easy as you can make it, the teachers want their students to have access to this. That's not the issue. They're afraid of the work on themselves and they're afraid of being embarrassed. So the thing that I love, the story that I love about this is Chloe, I'm gonna throw this to you because I love what Wolverhampton is doing about going out to secondary schools to try to leverage the skills you all have in teaching students that normally wouldn't have access to this kind of technology. Yeah, so a perfect example of, I guess, how we sort of did that and mentor and the teachers as well as the students at our university. We had a load of different secondary schools from across the region come into the university and we had an IBM mentor, we had a lecturer and then we had a bunch of student mentors. It was a whole day dedicated to teaching them new technologies through Master of the Mainframe platform and it was very important for us to encourage the teachers to do it themselves and making sure that they're asking us the questions and then providing the support as they go through the different system and they can do it their own pace. It's quite interesting to see the competition between the teachers and the students like who could finish part one, part two first but it was really good that we were able to give them the advice and give them the knowledge but then at the end we could say, okay, if you want to carry this on in your classroom, this is what you need to do and you can still reach out to us if you have any further questions and we had really positive feedback from that and the kids and the teachers thoroughly enjoyed the session. I love that and I've seen this at a number of other schools and I see a growing number of schools where it gives those university students a chance to share their skills with the younger generation and it connects the university with its local community. I mean, it's just such a good idea for so many reasons. So we're running out of time. I'll just end with a quote from one of my all-time favorite people in the world, Desmond Tutu. Do your little bit of good where you are. It is those little bits of good but all together that overwhelm the world. And I hope that you have at least one note written down of something that you're gonna be able to do. I'm happier if you filled an entire page full of notes. I am available to point you to resources, answer questions. This is something I really care about and I know these three young ladies do as well. I am Misty Decker on LinkedIn is the best place to find me and please contact me. I'm also MistyMVD on Twitter. So feel free to message me and I will be happy to help girls, help diversity and make our world of tech a better place. Thank you so much for joining us and a big thank you to my three lovely guest panelists. I look forward to seeing you change the world. And thank you, Misty. It's such an important message and we're glad we can share it. Thank you.