by njl on 4/30/13, 8:17 PM with 80 comments
by Jun8 on 4/30/13, 10:02 PM
The FIRST Robotics Competition high school team (Mechanicats, from Chicago) and I were testing our robot late one night this February. While we were munching pizza, exhausted, a girl from the team came to me and asked if I enjoyed what I do (I'm the software mentor for the team). The reason for the question, she said, was that she was torn about what to study in college. She told me that her grandmother, who lived in California, told her that she should learn programming! The grandma said she heard that, since there are so few women in tech, her chances would be much greater in getting a good job. I was flabbergasted (this is a South Side school and she's not coming from a well-off family, how the grandma came with this info is anybody's guess). I told her that's absolutely true and she should go for it. She's now enrolled in the rPi based python class I'll start next week.
So there you go, there's the solution to the "too few women in tech". Show young women that this is an huge opportunity, they should seize it. Tell them about the $5k for women in Hacker School. Tell them to participate in hackathons. Unfortunately, many of people focus on negative aspects of this situation. They have a lot to learn from my student's grandmother.
Please teach this to as many girls you can influence.
by noonespecial on 4/30/13, 9:15 PM
As I always whisper to my own daughter, "the computer can't tell you're a girl."
by taroth on 4/30/13, 9:32 PM
"Let’s focus on how one teenage girl, Jennie Lamere, defeated a room full of smart, motivated, experienced, full-grown men. This would seem to be instructive to the greater argument about women in technology, and besides, it has the added bonus of being -> based in fact rather than opinion <-"
As if the argument for women is based primarily on opinion.
“It’s also important to note that Jennie’s idea is a completely universal, gender-neutral one"
Is it? Last time I checked gender-biased ideas can be just as valuable as gender-neutral ones. Why does Jennie need to 'prove' herself capable of producing gender-neutral ideas?
by flootch on 4/30/13, 9:21 PM
It seemed this young woman acted identically to any young individual interested in tech.
Learned about tech. Lived tech. Talked tech. Practiced, practiced, practiced.
Didn't need any self-victimizing pink ghetto look at me give me an advantage because I'm a poor damsel in tech crapola.
by dmschulman on 5/1/13, 12:06 AM
"If you remember one thing from this article, it should be that the father of this prize-winning girl hacker (Paul Lamere, director of developer community for The Echo Nest, which publishes Evolver.fm) did not, as one might suspect, force, cajole, or otherwise convince his daughter to take up hacking."
Jennie's father is a part of the website which published an article about Jennie. It doesn't detract from my understanding of the story much, but I felt this fact diminished Jennie's accomplishment in some small way. Not in any meaningful way of course, but I wonder if this story would have been published if Jennie's father was not part of Evolver.fm's parent company.
by joyeuse6701 on 4/30/13, 9:59 PM
by archon on 4/30/13, 9:23 PM
> "The best part is the feeling of accomplishment and knowing that I made a hack that people reacted positively to."
Amazing what positive feedback can do.
by j4pe on 4/30/13, 11:17 PM
Jen is as smart and motivated a 17-year-old I've ever met, and she solved a real pain point of mine with nothing but one day of a two-day hackathon and a greasemonkey script.
But.
If I were her, and the judges were commanding applause from the audience with specific references to my age and gender (this happened twice) instead of my app and skill - if I became this symbolic object of a story we all want to tell - I don't know how I'd feel about that. I wonder how she feels about it, especially in light of stmchn's comment on winning.
Personally, I wish we lived in a world where this headline could read "Smart kid wins with cool hack." I guess when stories like this are no longer news, we'll know we've achieved normalcy.
by EdJiang on 4/30/13, 9:53 PM
At our last CodeDay in Seattle, a 17-year old HS student built an app that's received over 175,000 downloads on Google Play. http://www.geekwire.com/2013/student-programmer-creates-succ...
We've run CodeDay in five cities so far, with 30-100 students attending each event. If anything, it's a good sign that we can change the culture at the high school level and get more students into technology.
by greatquux on 4/30/13, 10:29 PM
by thom on 4/30/13, 11:00 PM
by achew22 on 4/30/13, 9:39 PM
by shirro on 5/1/13, 12:07 AM
by coherentpony on 4/30/13, 9:40 PM
by needacig on 4/30/13, 9:11 PM