 Hi, everyone, and Happy Women's History Month. My name is Mary Evans, and I work as an academic exchange specialist in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State here in Washington, DC. It is my pleasure to be with all of you future scientists, engineers, and mathematicians today for our Women Transforming Tech Program, featuring Emily Reed. Emily is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, educator, and all-around extraordinary woman. Thanks for joining us from West Palm Beach, Florida, Emily. Hello. Thank you, Mary. You're very welcome. Emily is going to talk with us today about some of the amazing things women have accomplished in tech and highlight incredible women from all across the globe who are developing new technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain to improve the world around them. Before we get started, I would like to recognize and give a warm welcome to all of our viewing groups today. Please send in your pictures by email or post them in the Facebook chat. We will show them at the end of the program. And for those of you who are viewing online, please write your thoughts and ask your questions in the comments section. Emily will get to as many of your questions as possible over the next hour, and she'll also stay online for a short time after the program ends to keep on answering your questions. So send them in. And with that, Emily, I'm turning it over to you. Great, Mary, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. I'm really grateful to all of you who are attending today. I'm very excited to share my thoughts with you about women transforming tech. And I'm particularly interested to hear your questions. So thank you to everyone who has put so much work into making this happen. I'm looking forward to answering your questions and having a conversation. So today I'm going to talk to you about the gender gap in tech in the US and around the world. How women have been an integral part in tech's past, present, and future. How I think tech can be used to solve important social problems and we'll end with some thoughts on how I think you specifically can be a part of this movement. So briefly, I just want to tell you a little bit about who I am and how I got interested in this problem. I studied math and computer science myself at Tufts University for my undergraduate, which is a school outside of Boston, Massachusetts in the US. And I was really stunned by the lack of women in my class. But I found that this was something I was very interested in. I ended up working at a company called MITRE Corporation in cybersecurity for several years after I graduated from university and went back to school to get my master's degree in computer science. And that was when I moved to New York City and went to Columbia University for my graduate degree. And that was actually where I started my consulting business. After I graduated with my master's, I went on to be the first director of education at a nonprofit called Girls Who Code. And like the tech girls mission, Girls Who Code was trying to close the gender gap in tech. And this is something that was very important to me. And I think that as computer scientists were kind of natural problem solvers. And this was the problem that I was most interested in understanding. So since then, I've started my own consulting business around this area. And specifically, I want to talk a little bit about the gender gap in the US and around the world. First, before we go into that, I would like I found that one of the main issues in this gender gap problem has to do with role models. So if you'll just take a moment and kind of picture in your own mind what a computer scientist looks like, OK? Does everyone have a picture in their mind? If you're most people, it's likely that you thought of one of someone who looks like this, someone like Mark Zuckerberger, Bill Gates, or the Google founders. And these are all American computer scientists who built amazing companies. But here are a couple examples of women who've had a huge influence on the history of technology that you might not have thought of. So these are a few women who I really look up to as role models and have inspired me personally. It's very important to realize, to bring up this history, to realize the influence that women have had on technology from its very beginnings. So a few of the photos you saw there, one was Annie Easley, who was an American computer programmer and rocket scientist. And she was the leading member of the programming team for the Centaur Rocket. She worked at NASA and its predecessor for 34 years and built some of the most important rocket software of its time. In the middle, you saw a photo of the ENIAC machine. I actually have an interesting story about that photo. But the ENIAC programmers were another great example of women's early influence on technology. So the ENIAC computer was the first general purpose computer, Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marilyn Meltzer, and Ruth Lichterman were the programmers of this revolutionary machine. They actually did not get credit for their work until about 50 years later, even though the work that they did had a huge influence on the new field of computer programming at the time. That photo that you actually saw got mixed up in editing. And it was one of the photos that, for years, historians thought were the programmers, but they were actually models standing in front of the computer. So if we have a few moments at the end of the talk, I'll try to post the photo of the programmers in the chat. And then the last one you saw on there was Catherine Johnson. She was another computer scientist who you might have read about or seen in the movie Hidden Figures. Catherine was also at NASA, and she worked on the Apollo 11 mission. In 1969, she wrote the calculations for the trajectories for that program. And for those who haven't seen the movie, this is a true story. Famously, John Glenn did not actually trust the calculations that the digital computer was making at that time. He said he would only believe it if it matched Catherine Johnson's calculation. So he actually trusted her more than the computer. And at that time, computer programmers usually came from mathematics. And Catherine later, beyond, went on to continue in computer programming and was a large part of building trust with that relationship with digital computers at the time because people trusted her work so much. So while there is this background of women having a huge influence on the very early days of technology, we now have a huge problem with the gender gap in technology in the United States. So take a moment to look at these graphs. I'm going to talk about some of the numbers in them. The first is a representation of women in high school in computer science and then in university and then in the workplace. So in the United States, part of the problem is that in high school, there's a course that we take in the US called the AP course. And it's in different subject areas, and it's usually a good indicator of what students will study at university. And while we talk a lot about the gender gap in STEM, computer science is where we really see the largest gender gap. So there are about, it depends on the year that you look, but there are, say, between 17% and 19% of AP computer science test takers are girls. Then we go into university. And the average that we hear at university levels in the US is about 12% to 19%. So this is interesting because in 1984, 37% of computer science majors in the US were women. And there are some interesting spikes, and I'm happy to talk about that during the Q&A. If you have some more questions, but this move is really concerning. And some people, some nice people ask, well, why does this matter? Well, I think it matters a lot because technology has so much influence on our lives. Everything that we, you probably woke up in the morning with your iPhone. You're looking at a screen right now. I'm talking to you over the internet. Technology has so much influence on every single thing that we do, and I think that technology should be designed by a group that looks like its users. So we should be, we know that diverse teams create better products, and it should reflect the users of that technology. So I think this is incredibly important. And when you look at even some of the top technologies, companies in the United States like Google, only 17% of the tech group are women, which is not surprising when you look backwards through the pipeline. So I really have been wondering for a long time how do we fix this? And I think that there are a lot of clues both in history and around the world for how we can fix this. So I went to the, I visited Morocco in January and got to speak to several really amazing women who may be watching today. And I was really inspired by them. And I heard anecdotally that a lot of the computer science courses in Morocco are actually have a much better gender balance than we do in the US. Computer science university level courses in North Africa and in the Middle East. And for the most part, those numbers look a lot better than what we do in the US. So this is something that during Q&A, I would love to hear your thoughts on. This is something that I'm really excited to learn more about and learn more about what's working. So in the Middle East, 40% of university students are specialized in computer science or IT are women. I read that in Tunisia, 41% of engineering students are women. And I think that while this may not necessarily translate to the workplace completely from what I've heard anecdotally, it seems that entrepreneurship might be the area where women can really rewrite the script for themselves. I read that online entrepreneurs in the Middle East, 35% of them are women, whereas the global average is around the world is 10%. So I think that this is really, really the place for opportunity. So once we get there, what do we wanna do with that? So I think that technology is a really important tool for social change. And there are a lot of women around the world who really have this in action and are people that I consider role models today. So these are a few photos of some women in the US who've had a huge influence on my life and are role models to me. But I think they're great examples of using technology to solve a problem that they care about. So Kea Williams has a startup called Serum. That is a company that connects people with who have diseases that require really expensive medication. It connects them to that unused medication. So she saw this issue, saw that there was a lot of waste happening and something that could be easily be solved by technology by connecting people. So she created that company. Liz Powers similarly created a company called Art Lifting that connects artists who are disabled or homeless and maybe don't have access to resources and clients to sell their work. Her platform provides them with some of those resources, helps connect them to patrons. And again, these are just two great examples of technology really bridging the gap to connect people. I think that when we see a problem, technology is a way that we can really bring some power to that solution. And Megan Smith is another one who's a personal hero of mine. She was the third Chief Technology Officer of the United States under the Obama administration. And she championed a program that we were very involved in called CS For All, which continues on today in the community consortium. But the goal of that was really to get computer science into every high school in the United States. And that's something that we're very passionate about trying to educate more of our young people in computer programming. And she was really one of the people who made that happen and championed that effort in addition to just being a really awesome woman in tech who I look up to. Some women in the Middle East who have created some really amazing companies around, companies and programs around problems that they saw. So Laura was an entrepreneur in Beirut. She actually left Google, and I believe she also worked at Yahoo, the kind of big Silicon Valley companies so that she could return to her home country and she got involved with a group, a game development company called, the company called Game Cooks and the game was called Run for Peace. And I think it's just a great example of using technology and game development and things that people are already interested in to help them learn about important social change. Hasnain Saleem is a Saudi entrepreneur and game developer who created a conference called G-Con for women game developers. She saw the need for a space and she just created it herself and it's been an incredibly successful gaming conference. I also read that that was one of the highest numbers of women being part of university study and computer science. I think it was 59% in Saudi Arabia. And finally, Sarah Beydoun who is another Lebanese woman. She started an online company called Sarah's Bag and Sarah's Bag teaches ex-prisoners who want to rehabilitate and society teaches them entrepreneurship skills to build their own bags and Sarah's Bag online website platform brings those tech tools to bear so that she can also solve this problem that she cared about that she saw as a need for women in her country. There are, so there's a lot of interesting things happening around the world today. We could talk about this forever. I also want to take a moment to think about some of the things that are happening in the future. Where can we go next and what's untapped? So if you look in the news today, tech news, you'll read a lot about blockchain or self-driving cars or big data or AI. And there are a lot of exciting things happening in these areas. But often when I look at this really advanced technology, here we've already seen Uber and some other companies that have self-driving cars on the road. It's really incredible advancement but I sometimes think to myself, what problem is this solving? And we have really deep problems around the world that need work. So while there's a lot of social impact that's been specific to applications and games, there's a lot, I think that there's a lot of potential in these areas, but they are new. So I want to share a few examples of some research that I've seen of some beginning projects that have a lot of potential. So blockchain is something you may have heard a lot about. I know here a lot of people are going crazy about Bitcoin and whether they should invest in that coin and whether blockchain's going to change our entire social structure. And it may, but I think that there are some really interesting areas where blockchain can have a huge social impact on important problems. One of the major problems in the US right now and in other parts of the world is the opioid epidemic. So there is a huge issue of heroin that's injected with fentanyl that becomes deadly to any user. And tracking that drug supply chain is a really, is a difficult problem and it's very complex. But there are some people who have gone, started to begin to talk about the research around this area. Is blockchain a potential tool that we could use to track that supply chain for those drugs? And the anonymity that blockchain can provide and the security that it can provide might open the option for someone to, if they know that a batch of those, of that drug is bad, that person might be able to share that information so that others can have it in a safe and secure way. And that this might be a way to prevent some of those deaths in the US. So I think this is a question that's worth looking into further. Another interesting example of the potential of the application of blockchain is to the issue of goods that are made using slave labor. So those supply chains for products around the world can be very complex and it can be challenging for companies or for consumers to know whether any kind of illegal labor went into the production of that product. And so blockchain similarly may be a way for people to track the supply chain of the product and if they are aware of illegal activity to share that in a way that is secure and anonymous but still connects the dots between the rest of the chain so that users or a company can know really where this product is coming from. So I think that that's some really very new areas that people are just starting to explore. But if you check out some of the websites that I just shared, you can learn a little bit more about their current status. And then finally I think AI is an area where there's a lot of great potential work to be done. This is a story from a group at the University of Southern California that is trying to solve a problem of letting homeless youth in the LA area know about HIV and get HIV education. And so what they did was they had two groups that were, one was they got a group of peer leaders who are popular people in the community, in the homeless youth community in LA to give these trainings. So they give the trainings to their friends so that's in the control group. And then in the AI group they use an AI algorithm to mix up the social groups so that they potentially could cover a larger swath. And what they found is that the group that's using the AI algorithm is much more effective both in getting trainings out to more youth in LA but they're also more effective and more of those youths were actually getting tested and following up with their training. So I think these are some really interesting and creative areas that certainly need more work and need more exploration but I think that they have a lot of potential to really solve some deep social problems. And finally, what I would like to leave my first portion of the talk here with is what I think that you can do. So I really am a strong believer that technology and computer science and programming is something that actually anyone can learn. And there are people who will disagree with me on this but believe me, I think that it is really possible to learn anything in this area. I think that anyone can get their hands around this. And I'm going to share some resources at the end for some places that I would suggest to start but I really believe that you are the next step. So computer science is a way to solve problems that you care about. A computer scientist is someone who solves problems. So I just wanna have a moment for you to kind of take in these words but what computer scientists do is they use that, they use programming, they use algorithms, they use that theory to solve major problems, to solve problems at scale. And that's something that we can apply to deep social problems. So I think that if this is something that excites you and you see a problem that you care about in your community or in your version of the world, you can learn the technical skills that you need to help try to solve that problem. So I would really encourage you all to think about problems that you care about. You may already have some projects in mind that I would love to hear about. So these are a few resources that I would recommend. There are some great communities and events that have an international presence that I've been involved with in the US but I know exists around the world. And then these are some recommended online CS learnings. We're gonna be putting these in the links to this in the comment sections that you can follow up. But these are I think some great resources to get started. Either if you, great resources to get started if you're new to programming, but a lot of them also have some really great advanced materials if you've already had some experience so far. These are a couple of region specific resources that I found as I was doing research for this talk that might be useful to you depending on where you are. And your State Department programs like Tech Girls or the DigiGirls program, Morocco, there are a few that have really, really great impact. And I've seen the influence that this has on Girls Live. So please check out some of those resources if that's of interest to you. Finally, I'd like to leave you with a few things that I've learned, a little bit of humble advice. So please feel free to take it or leave it. But these are some things that I've learned in my search to use technology for social good. No matter what, you can be a computer scientist despite obstacles. We all need to kind of find our own path. I think I've had kind of the unique path through technology. And I think that really should be individual to everyone. But you should really be your own guide in that process. That being said, while you'll have your individual path, there are a lot of great female role models around the world. There's a lot of women that you'll meet in those communities. So you should really work to learn from and be inspired by them while you find your own path. And it won't always necessarily be easy. Computer science is something I believe everyone can learn, but it can be challenging at times. It's really important to have what I call a growth mindset, which means that when you find yourself in challenging situations, when you receive criticism, that's an opportunity to grow. That's a really wonderful thing. And please keep in mind that diverse teams are extremely important. Your voice is extremely important. And I believe that we can use the technology that we have today and the technology that's coming tomorrow as tools to solve the problems that we care about. So the thought I would like to leave you with is that you can do it. This is a photo of one of my girls who put classrooms in Miami. We on our last day took the Rosie Riveter pose, but we changed. We can code it to, we can do it to, we can code it. And of course that was a famous image in the US to motivate women to get involved with their country's needs at the time. And I think that our entire world has a lot of problems and a lot of things that we need solved, but you have the opportunity to make an impact on those problems. And I believe that technology is one of the most powerful ways that we have at our disposal to try to solve some of those problems. So please use that as an image you can keep in mind going forward. I think that you can code the change you wanna see in the world. Thank you so much for listening. And I really look forward to your questions and having a conversation with you. Great, thank you so much Emily for that presentation and for your advice. And also the resources you mentioned. Like you said, we're going to be pinning some of those resources with links to the top of the comments so that you all can check them out later. But now it's time to get to your questions. So we will try to get to as many as possible. So please write them in the comment section if you haven't already. We have a question first from Hanine from Ramallah and she asks, how can we keep the momentum going to support initiatives for women in technology? That's a great question. This is something I, excuse me for my cough. This is something that I have been concerned about because I do think that it's a very popular thing to talk about right now. And it's going to continue to be important even after it becomes less popular to talk about. And I never like to take for granted that this is something that this sort of popularity of this movement could change. I don't think that it will soon but I don't like to take that for granted. So how do we keep the momentum going? I think that community is an extremely important part of this. I know that in my personal experience, I've found that communities of women in technology are the way that I feel propelled to continue to do the work that I do to talk about it online. I think that our online resources are a really fantastic way to do this. So use the social media at your disposal to talk about these issues. Share the projects that you're working on on GitHub or online or elsewhere and really just feel free to mobilize your local communities as well. So if you have friends that are interested in this, encourage them. And I think that really community and speaking your voice and being vocal and visual about this is the way to keep things going. Great, thank you. I actually had a follow up question to that, Emily. Are there, you mentioned communities of women and how important it is that they support each other, that they share what they're working on and that those communities are one of the ways to keep momentum going. But I guess I have a question. What can teachers maybe in the classroom or classmates in high school do specifically to help encourage each other or to promote girls who are interested in math, science, computer science, et cetera. Is there, are there some specific steps you think people can take? Absolutely. So I think some, there are some great resources available for computer science teachers. Please check out. I know that some of these are available freely online. So they can be available internationally but the Computer Science Teachers Association in the US is a really fantastic resource and they have provided some trainings for computer science teachers around equity and diversity in their classrooms. But a couple, so that's one resource I would check out online afterwards, but a couple things that I'll share immediately is that it's really important to be mindful of the language and examples you use when talking about computer science. I know that in my experience, some of my first computer science classes, some of the only role models that I've heard about were some of those men. And while I was really inspired by their stories, I also really connected with the stories of other women. So, you know, tell the true history of computer science, talk about Christ Hopper, talk about Adela Leis, talk about Catherine Johnson, and be mindful of the examples that you use because a lot of times examples can be in computer science, can either be very esoteric and really not grounded in reality, which is just challenging for any student. But, you know, even though I'm someone who maybe likes video games, but I don't love sports, sometimes there'll be examples like that that are used in programming courses that might not resonate with everyone. So, be mindful about the examples that you're using and maybe use a diverse group of examples or use examples grounded in reality that resonate with more people. Great, thank you so much. Speaking of your time in some of your computer science classes, I read a story that you've shared before, I think, about some comments that your lab partner made to you on the first day of your very first computer science class. I thought that those who are joining us today would appreciate hearing that story and how you have dealt with discouragement more generally on your way to pursuing your education and career. And then for my own benefit, I'm curious, did anything change between you and your lab partner by the end of that class? So that's my follow-up. Great question. So, for those who haven't heard the story before, so I hadn't taken any computer science courses before I entered college. I had been interested in it, I'd always been a good math and physics student, but I was new to computer science. So I took my first course in my freshman year of college and I was interested but nervous. And the most, those one-on-one courses at my university we were paired up with a lab partner for the semester. And so I was paired with a guy named Gerald and Gerald had been programming at home for years. He was one of those kids who had been taking his computer part and hacking away since he was in middle school or maybe early art crawl, I know. And he was very clearly upset to be paired with me as a total newbie. And it became really relevant, very clear in the first few minutes probably of our lab that I did not have as much experience as he did with computer science and with programming. And what happened was that while we were, while we were starting a program and I was probably stressed out trying to look something up, he said to me, I thought they were going to pair us with people of similar abilities. And it was really painful for me to hear because I was a little shy. I was really new to this, I was kind of nervous. And then to have someone tell me that I didn't have as much ability as he did, really hurt and it made me consider dropping the course. So I tell that story because that was my, in my first week or so, that was my experience. I thought, maybe I'll just forget this computer science thing, maybe it's just not for me. Most of the experience that I had in my class so far was of I was the only girl in the class or maybe one of two or three. And most of the guys who were answering questions using vocabulary and words that were totally new to me. And so I thought maybe this just isn't for me. And, but I found that when I continued doing the work I was really interested in it. I loved it when I really kind of gotten to the meat of the work. And so that kept me going. And I found out that my experience was very similar to a lot of other women in computer science. I actually finished the course by the way with a better grade than Gerald just made. So experience that you've had before isn't everything. That is something we can all learn and get better. It doesn't necessarily have to do with ability. Experience and ability aren't the same thing. So I think that's really important to know. I believe that Gerald went on to have a great career as an engineer and we didn't really become besties or anything after that. But my point is that you should really, when you have people in your life like that who discount you or immediately make a judgment about you and don't think that you can do this, you really shouldn't listen to that. You should listen to the voice inside yourself that says keep going and this is something you can do. Because if I hadn't listened to that, I wouldn't be here talking to you all today. No, thanks a lot. Yeah, I've seen you describe yourself elsewhere as like growing up that you were a bit of a geek or specifically a math geek. And I'm wondering what did that mean to you when you were growing up? Did it ever feel like that part of your identity didn't fit with the other parts of your life? Did you, how did you end up reconciling or resolving any conflict there between those sort of parts of yourself, especially as a young woman? Oh, that's such a great question. So I definitely was really, I was really interested in math. That was something I had always been interested in. That was certainly my individual story. I like to say that I don't think that you need to be obsessed with math to be good at computer science. I've met a lot of people who are great programmers who aren't necessarily great at math. There are some areas of computer science where you really need to have super solid math skills. But it's really about logic at its core. And that's something that I do think that anyone can learn. But I was always really interested in math even though I wasn't necessarily like a tech geek or hadn't programmed or hacked very much until I was in college. But I was also really into theater and English and history. And I loved like Shakespeare. And there was definitely a large part of me for a long time that felt like, maybe I need to choose or maybe I need to set aside this part of my life if I wanna focus on math and technology. And what I've learned is that those things that you are interested in, that you're personally driven by, are really important things to listen to and they're not in conflict. I think that there's actually a lot of really fascinating ways to combine your interests. The huge advantage of technology is that it's a part of literally every industry and every part of our lives. So if you have a passion for dance, maybe you can create an app that helps teach other students how to dance. There are so many possibilities for ways that we can apply technology to things that we're passionate about. And so that certainly is something that took me a long time to learn. So if you're going through that, I totally understand but I don't think that you need to set aside those parts of yourself. I think that things like humanities and arts make you a richer, more fuller person. Okay, great, thank you. We just had a question come in from the American Center in Malay. Their question is what are your thoughts on AI or artificial intelligence? You mentioned some of the potential uses for artificial intelligence, but they're asking what are some more of those potentials and what are the risks of AI? Should we be fearful at all? That's a really great question. So I think that one of the things that we do need to be concerned about, I think concern probably is the right word, certainly not anxious, but something that we should be spending time on is the ethics of artificial intelligence. And this is something that I think is true across technology. I think we should be generally a lot more concerned about ethics. Technology moves a lot more quickly than most of us are used to. It moves sometimes quicker than our brains are catching up with. And so I think it's important that we take some time to really think about what are some of our ethical principles around using AI? What are some of our ethical principles around data and privacy? And what kind of an effect can these technologies have? So they are powerful tools, but tools can be used for good or for bad. And even sometimes when they're used for good, if we don't anticipate them, there can be unintended consequences. So I know certainly one of the challenges with AI is that it may put some people out of jobs. That is something that technology has always gone through. So I do think that's a concern. I think that that's, however, all the more reason why we should invest more in computer science education because while it may take some people out of jobs that AI may be able to do better or more efficiently, there are still people who are programming those AI's and the world is going to need a lot more programmers than it even has now. So I think that that is a way generally for us to prepare more people for those jobs in the future. But I think that AI really rests on decision making algorithms and data and we need to have a better public understanding of what data is about, what data we're giving up when we go online. And I think that it's okay to share data. I just want people to be informed about what it is that they're sharing. So again, I think that there's really, I think there's a lot of great examples of how AI can be used for some great social impact. But there are some risks to people and there are some risks in the way that it's done. So we need to have a thoughtful, proactive approach about our ethics surrounding AI. Thank you for your thoughtful answer there. We have one more question from Rua. She asks, how can we encourage women and girls to be interested in technology? And you've already addressed that a little bit. So my follow up is one of the ways might be to seek out a mentor or you talked a little bit about role models and mentors. So what advice would you have for women who are seeking mentors and are there any particular traits or experiences that someone should seek when they're looking for a mentor? Those are several great questions. I certainly have been on both the receiving and giving end of that mentorship. I've been really grateful to have some wonderful female mentors and role models in my life. And I try to be that to a lot of the other girls in my life. So I think that a mentor should be someone who can give advice while still recognizing that you are on your own individual path. I don't think that, I think we can look to role models and mentors for inspiration and for some valuable lessons learned. But I also think that you need to kind of find your own individual path in technology and what you are going to bring is unique than to what anyone else can bring. So a mentor should be someone who can provide you with some of that encouragement, provide you with some of their own lessons learned and help you to cultivate what it is that you're interested in and that you want to do. There are some of the resources that I shared in the slides and that will be shared in the comments. Like Anita Borg Institute has a group called AirBweck I know in the Middle East region. And there's a few of those organizations that have several mentorship groups online. So please check that out if you don't already have a mentor at your school or university or wherever you are. Because you may be able to find some online mentorship and you can certainly find a lot of really inspirational women in this area. So please check those out. But again, I would say someone who can provide you encouragement, some of their own lessons learned and encourage you on your own and individual path. Thanks for those highlights, Emily. Nuran Ahmed asks, can computer science be self-taught or should it be pursued only through university education? That's a great question. And I know that there are a lot of successful programmers who's come from both paths. So it is certainly possible to do it through both. The advice that I usually give to people, and again, I give this advice humbly because I think that this can be specific to the person and their learning style. What I've found generally to be most successful is that when you're starting out in computer science it can be really helpful to be in an in-person course with a good teacher. So that might be at a university, that might be at a really good well vetted boot camp. But I think that having that in-person facilitation and support can be extremely helpful for most people. And I think that then once you have a solid base in programming, and I think that theoretical principles are important, this is something that boot camps are starting to embrace a lot more. So I'm happy to see that movement. I think that once you have a solid base, it's a lot easier to go and learn online. And there are so many programming languages, and there are so many new technologies that you're just not going to be able to learn it all in your university education anyways. It's something that will probably continue throughout your life. And there's a lot of great self-learning that you can do. But my advice is to have some grounding in an in-person course when you first start out so that you can really understand those computational principles really deeply before you go off and learn on your own. Because I think for most people, that self-learning process can be a little frustrating. But not for all, some people really love that. So that's my advice, but make sure to stay in tune to yourself and what you think is working best for you. Thanks, Emily. We had a question come in from Hexa Connection Tripoli. They ask, can you recommend any useful MOOCs or massive open online courses related to technology or computer science? Yes. So one of the courses that, one of the websites that I mentioned is Coursera. And I believe through Coursera, there are several great ones on Coursera. I believe it's on Coursera. If not, you can Google this course, but the beauty and joy of computing is a really fantastic introductory computer science course that was developed at UC Berkeley. And it's something that they, I know that they put online and that they had a lot of success in attracting a more diverse group of students to that course. And it's a rigorous computer science course, but it's also really fun. And it has a lot of great examples of how you can use computer science to solve interesting problems. And it really grounds it in some great examples. The beauty and joy of computing is one that I would recommend. And I'll double check if that's available on Coursera, but Coursera also as a place for MOOCs has a lot of other great courses. Great, thanks. I like that, the beauty and joy of computing. Those are two words. That's a great title. Those are two words that I think, yeah, my humanities major, I'm like, really? Beauty and joy, but it makes a lot of sense. And that, I mean, I guess that makes me wonder too, what is the best part about being a computer scientist for you? I mean, is there, where is the beauty and joy for you in the work? Absolutely. I think that the beauty and the joy comes from that problem solving process. If you've ever, you know, if you're excited by challenges that you see in the world and puzzles and trying to use logic to fix things and come to, you know, come to a better solution, if that's a process that you enjoy, you'll love computer science because that's really what it's all about. Well, you know, a lot of our, sometimes the stereotypes of computer science and of stages all age old is that, you know, it's boring or that someone's just coding in a basement somewhere, sort of removed from reality, but the truth is that technology affects so much of the world around us. So the application of what you're doing is likely to be something that you can really see and feel. But it really involves a sort of logical problem solving process. And I find that to be something that's really exciting because once you see a work, that's where the joy comes. Great, thank you. We have a question from Ashti from American Corner Air Bill. They ask, what are the reasons behind the lack of numbers of women who are involved in IT and computer science more generally, if you have a sense of where that gap comes from? Yeah, that's great. So this is something I wasn't gonna go into during the talk because of time, so I'm glad that we came back to this. So you might have remembered on my slide about the university level participation of women in computer science in the US. There were two really large spikes that you saw in the 1980s, the kind of the mid-80s, late-80s, and the late-90s. So those two spikes in the overall study of computer science correlate with two very important moments in computer history. In the 1980s, it was the release of the personal computer. And in the 1990s, it was the World Wide Web or the dot-com boom. So what's interesting is that in the 1980s, women were a part of that spike. As I said, 37% of computer science majors in 1984 were women, much higher than it is today. So there are several theories why women weren't involved in that spike in the 1990s and still aren't included today. One of the theories that I think is pretty compelling is that in the 1980s, at least certainly in American culture, we started to associate computers and technology a lot more with men and male professions. Personal computers, a lot of the advertising around them were marketed to boys as toys. This was also happening during a period when toy stores around the US were starting to, there was a lot more segregation between girls and boys toys, whereas before there had been a lot of toys that were sort of considered unisex. So this was all happening at a time when we were really kind of segregating what boys toys were and what girls toys were. And we started to associate computers and technology with boys because of a lot of the advertising and then the popular culture. So there were a lot of movies in the 80s that were about core games and things like that that were really kind of associating hacking with boys. So I think that's one compelling reason. And I think that then it continues because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you are growing up as a young girl and you don't see a lot of girls in your computer science classes, you don't see a lot of those computer science role models. And even though they might be around, you're not visually seeing them and maybe your teachers aren't sharing them with you, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So there aren't enough role models and not enough girls are taking the computer science classes in high school, then they don't graduate and they don't go into the tech workspace and it continues. So I think that those are some of the reasons why the number has declined. I am hopeful that we are at sort of a point, a moment of change in the tide because I think that there's been a lot of really wonderful work around the world from women to kind of hold these universities and companies accountable. A lot of it is more complicated than the history that I just shared. There's issues with making sure that tech workplaces are safe and comfortable environments for women to work in. And there's been a lot of work going on to really hold those companies accountable. So I think that because we're starting to see more role models and we're starting to change the environment, I hope that we will be in a turn of the tide, but we'll see. Thank you. Yeah, from what you said, especially about toys and things like that, it sounds like some of this starts really early. And we had a question from Arby at the American Center in Cairo. Have you seen a change in attitude in girls who participate in early coding? So I guess coding when they're young or early on in grade school. Sure, absolutely. So I think actually grade school is a great place to introduce this kind of work. One of the statistics I didn't share is that we know that of middle school students in the US, about 74% of middle school girls express an interest in STEM in science, technology, engineering, and math. So that's obviously a broad range of subjects, but those tend to be the students who might wanna take a computer science course. But then you go on to see so few girls graduating computer science and taking those courses. So something happens between middle school and high school that seems to kind of veer girls away from those more technical career paths. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily been a change in what I see, because I think I've always seen grade school students be really excited about computer programming. They don't necessarily have as many cultural ideas about what tech is and haven't absorbed all of those stereotypes yet. So they tend to be pretty interested and excited about it. I think that what has changed is a lot of the content and the courses and the resources available to those students have gotten better. So you're able to reach more students. You're able to really provide them a better quality of education with some of those programs and resources. But I've always found that young students tend to be pretty, if they're taught in a really good environment, tend to be pretty excited about that work. Thank you. So Emily, we're starting to run out of time here and we have a few more questions. So it's a great problem to have, but I'm gonna ask that you keep your response to this next one brief so that we can get to as many more as possible. American Corner Airbill asks, what are some ways that women can integrate technology and develop their tech skills at home? Great question. So please check out some of the online resources that I shared. There are some really wonderful online sites to practice your skills. Put your code on GitHub so that you can get feedback from friends and see what other programmers like you are working on. And the last thing that I would recommend to do at home is checking out something like a Raspberry Pi. There are cheap little devices that you can program at home and do some awesome physical computing with. So that's something that I would recommend checking out as well. Great, thank you. Serene from Tunisia asks, how can young women motivate each other and get other young women involved in STEM and guide them to the tech domain? Great, so as a way to get other young women involved, definitely look into starting like a programming club in your community or at your school. If you have some experience or even if you don't have too much experience, you can volunteer to lead a club and help learn alongside the students or share your knowledge with them. So I think that clubs are a great way to do this. And some of those women in tech resources that I shared will have some examples. So please do that. Encourage your friends to try it out if you have something in your community or maybe you can even, if you don't have something already, you can get a group of women and girls together and go on one of those online coding websites. Do the Code.org programs or do a Coursera course together. It doesn't need to be fancy, you just need to get started. Okay, thank you. We have one final question, which comes from the US Consulate General in Jerusalem. It is, do you think women can start their own startup before working or should they be employed first? Oh, that's a great question. So I think it does depend a little bit on what you want to do. I would recommend if you have an idea, sometimes the best way to learn is just to try it and learn from your mistakes and that's okay. I do think that in some areas it can be helpful to have some industry or work experience just to understand like how office spaces work, better understand that kind of like business communication. I think it depends a lot on what that startup is. So if you think that your idea might benefit from some experience in the workplace, especially if it's a very specific skill set, then it might be helpful to maybe pilot something or do something small before you start out and then work on it while you're in the workplace. But I don't think that you need to be older. I don't think that you need to wait in order to try something out yourself. There's nothing, some really amazing companies started by young people or great projects. So I think try something out but don't not do it because you don't feel like you're allowed to or that you need to be older. If you think it's something that would benefit from some specific skills that you can learn in the workplace, start something small and then you can always take it off later, particularly if you want to focus on it financially that can help you. Thank you so much, Emily Reid, for being with us today to talk not only about some of the great things women have accomplished in the past but what they are doing today all around the world to use technology to make a difference. This has been a terrific discussion with really great questions from our online audience. So thank you to all of those watching and I want to give a special shout out to our viewing groups watching at US Embassy Algiers, American Corner Air Bill, the American Center in Cairo, America House Jerusalem, Gaza Sky Geeks in Gaza City, the HEXA organization in Tripoli, Dar America in Casablanca, the American Center Mali in the Maldives and one last thing before we go. If you liked this program, go ahead and like this page on Facebook. Follow us here or on Twitter at TechGirls and there you'll find out more about the TechGirls program in the Middle East and North Africa. TechGirls brings girls like you age 15 to 17 from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian territories and Tunisia to the United States for a three week program that builds leadership and coding skills and encourages young women to pursue careers in science and technology. It's been so wonderful to speak with you, Emily and it's been so great hearing from all of our viewers. So Emily has kindly agreed to stay online for a few minutes after we end this live stream. She will be signing in using the account handle guest speaker to answer more of your questions so don't go anywhere. Happy Women's History Month everyone and have a great rest of the day.