August 14th 2017 


Spotlight

Speakers!

Ismat Aziz 
Chief Human Resources Officer
Sprint

Laura Barrowman
Chief Technology Officer
Credit Suisse
Abiodun Koya
US-based Nigerian Gospel singer, Opera singer and Poet

Register for the Million Women Mentors Summit and Awards HERE

Proven Strategies to Prepare Students for CS Careers

On August 9th at 11:00 AM, four incredible educational thought leaders spoke on their signature statewide and other initiatives to help prepare students for the 21st Century Workforce. This webinar focuses on the importance of computer science and career awareness for students.


Moderated by: Former US Congressman Zach Wamp

Speakers Include:
– Dr. Kathleen Airhart, Deputy Commissioner of Education, Tennessee DOEDrive to 55
– Ruthe Farmer, Chief Evangelist, CSforAll Consortium
– Balaji Ganapathy, Head of HR Workforce Effectiveness, Tata Consultancy Services
 Johnny Key, Commissioner of Education, Arkansas DOE


Read Full Article Here


MWM-Louisiana is off to a great

start! The 2 nd Annual STEAM camp hosted by Dr. Herman O. Kelly, Pastor of Bethel AME church was a great success. The 5 day camp was offered to students from grades 5-12 in the Baton Rouge area, and received a ton of support from the local community. City Councilwoman Tara Wicker, the LSU College of Science, NASA, and the non-profit organization Hard Hats and High Heels dedicated their time, energy, and resources to ensure each participant had a fun educational experience. On each day, students participated in exercises to expand their knowledge of each area of STEAM, and created presentations for the parent showcase on the final day of the camp. Great highlights of the week include an experiment in exploring the chemical properties of liquid nitrogen with Dr. George Stanley, LSU Department of Chemistry; animal research with Valerie Derouen, LSU Museum of Natural Science; and aerospace and technology
exploration with Dinna L. Cottrell, Marquez Singleton, and Breeana Fortenberry with NASA.
Due to the generous donations from the local community, each of the 20 participants received a swag bag of goodies from the LSU College of Science, NASA, and Hard Hats and High Heels. Special thanks to the Bethel AME Church STEAM committee for making a great STEM impact in the state of Louisiana. There will be more great activities to come!



AUSTRALIA: Meet the Publishing Guru and Businesswoman Behind ‘Mentor Walks Australia’

Bobbi Mahlab isn’t afraid of change.

It’s how she evolved a traditional print publishing business into a thriving digitally-focussed, content marketing agency without losing her cool.

Bobbi’s also determined to help other women excel. It’s why she and Adina Jacobs, founder of STM Brands, are in the process of ramping up ‘Mentor Walks Australia’–a unique mentoring program where senior women support emerging female leaders by literally going on a walk together.


Teenagers – Mostly Female – Shadow Surgeons in a Medical Mentoring Program in Murrells Inlet

MURRELLS INLET — When the doctors who own Carolina Coast Surgery Center decided to establish a new medical mentoring program for high school students.

This year, 55 students from 10 high schools in Horry and Georgetown counties were selected to participate in the free program. 

Fifty of those 55 students are female — a noteworthy statistic considering the fact that more than any other medical specialty, orthopedic surgery is dominated by male physicians. According to numbers compiled by the Association of American Medical Colleges, 95 percent of all orthopedic surgeons operating in the United States in 2015 were men. 


Cara Delevingne Promotes Female Empowerment & Youtube Red’s Girls In STEM Series

Model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne has teamed up with sports brand Puma for a series called #DoYouStories, where she highlights the work of women activists in a range of different areas. Cara explained the idea stemmed from a trip to Uganda with UNHCR earlier in 2017, and as the brand ambassador for Puma, she approached them with the idea for the female empowerment series.


Read Full Article Here

STEM Gender Gap Spurs Push to Support Research

U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., has introduced two pieces of legislation to address the issue. The Building Blocks of STEM and Code Like a Girl acts both seek to fund research into early childhood STEM education.

As a former computer programmer, Rosen said she saw firsthand the gender gap in her field.

“Despite the progress we’ve made, fewer than one in five computer science graduates are women,” she said. “This disparity is depriving our country of talented minds that could be working on our most challenging problems.”


University of Hawaii News: More than $1 Million Strengthens Support for STEM Women Faculty

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $1,099,959 to the University of Hawaiʻi to support the advancement of women and minorities in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields at its seven community colleges.

A partnership between UH Community Colleges and UH Hilo, the project will use virtual tools to connect remote island campus locations in mentoring and coaching trainings for administrators and senior faculty. The program will also implement a mentoring and coaching program for women STEM faculty of diverse race and ethnic backgrounds.


Yes, Men and Women are Wired Diferently. This is Why We Must Work for Equality in STEM

Dr.Soh points out the obvious: women and men are genetically different. But it is regressive, repressive, and entirely false to use this as the reason why women are not equally participating in STEM. For decades, women have been shut out of STEM fields, facing barriers such as active resistance, stereotypes, structural constraints, and formal or informal biases. These barriers are cultural, not scientific.

We need to stop looking at the issue of women in STEM as quota-filling, and start talking exclusively about why achieving 50 percent participation of women matters.


Retired Starbucks President Howard Behar and Dr. Lynn Behar Partner with iD Tech and Caltech to Help Close the STEM Gender Gap

This summer, Howard and Lynn Behar sponsored two weeks of Girls in STEM at Alexa Café held at Caltech University. The first 14 girls from George Washington Carver Middle School attended the week of July 17, and another 24 girls from Hollenbeck Middle School attended the week of July 24th.

Alexa Café, a division of iD Tech, is a girls-only environment led by female instructors where girls learn coding, engineering, game design, and more, with a special focus on developing their leadership, entrepreneurship, and social activism skills. “In one week, you’ll see young women creating an anti-bullying video, a nature conservation website, a 3D-printed table top soccer game, and so much more,” says Charlie Freund, Territory Manager for iD Tech.

Read Full Article Here
April Boyd-Noronha: 6 Steps to ‘Flip the Script’ on Women in STEM

Next week, my oldest daughter will embark on the next level of her STEM journey — the college level. She has chosen to pursue a major in cybersecurity this fall.

As a STEM parent, I’m filled with mixed emotions related to the recent and very public allegations and admission of the sexist culture that exists within the STEM industry. In response, I asked myself what’s the best advice I can give my daughter?

Three words came to mind: “Flip the script!” Using the word S.C.R.I.P.T. as an acronym, here’s a six-step survival guide as she leaves for college next week.


Read Full Article Here
Caroline Kennedy Elected to Boeing Board of Directors

The Boeing Co. has announced that Caroline Kennedy has been elected to its board of directors, giving her a hand in guiding the fortunes of the aerospace giant that drives the bulk of work in Wichita’s commercial aviation supply cluster.

She is also an attorney, having earned her Juris Doctorate law degree from Columbia Law School, an author, editor and advocate for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education for women.

 

Read Full Article Here
Growing the Female Broker Force

For over a decade, Susan L. Combs, partner at The Capacity Group, an EPIC company, has been a leading example in the employee benefits market. From serving as the youngest national president of Women in Insurance & Financial Services in the 81 year history of the organization, to helping forge the national advocacy relationship between WIFS and NAIFA, Combs continues to push her achievements forward—including being selected as one of EBA’s 2017 Most Influential Women in Benefit Advising.

“Susan is an advocate for women in our industry,” says Andrea Racanelli, marketing communications manager at The Capacity Group. “She has spoken all across the country on how to attract more women to our industry. That seems to sit at right around 14% in our field.”

Read Full Article Here

Mentoring Benefits All Who Are Involved

Sheryl Sandberg said in her book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”:

“I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.”

 

Read Full Article Here

Why Some of the World’s Most Powerful Women Mentor

When activist, author, and model Dayle Haddon was asked this spring to mentor a female entrepreneur from South Africa, she couldn't resist: "I could not say no," she says. "How could I say no?"

Haddon's mentee was Busi Nxumalo, founder and managing director of South African solar energy company GenEnergy and one of 21 women business leaders who traveled to the States this spring for the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. In its 12th year, the program matches women from countries ranging from Poland to Zimbabwe with some of the top female executives in the U.S. This year's mentors hailed from companies including FidelityMastercard (MA, +0.34%)IBM (IBM, +0.12%)Accenture, and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, -0.89%).


How Mentorship Can Help Keep Women Engaged in Tech

‘The best mentors don’t simply answer questions; they teach actual strategies,’ says Monica Eaton-Cardone, whose column on monetizing digital content appeared last fall.

Women are underrepresented in IT and other tech fields. That’s nothing new at this point; in fact, the portion of tech jobs filled by women steadily declined over the last few decades to fewer than one in five.

I’ve talked about the need to encourage girls and young women to explore opportunities in technology. However, that’s just half the battle. If we’re to achieve true gender parity in tech, we’ll need to go beyond the classroom.


Read Full Article Here
Free Mentoring Program Teaches Women Tech Tricks

Graphic artist Morgahna Godwin has found Coding with Grace a chance to learn and share her IT knowledge with others in Bundaberg.

She was a US navy admiral and computer programming pioneer of the 20th century, and has both a guided-missile destroyer and a supercomputer named after her.

Across the Pacific and decades later, a Bundaberg couple inspired by Grace are encouraging women to get out of their comfort zone and dive into the world of computer code.

Coding is what goes on behind the scenes of every computer program you've ever used - or any app on your mobile phone.

 

Read Full Article Here
Blizzard Wants to Improve its Diversity by Hiring More Women

Twenty-one percent of Blizzard's employees are women. It's a ratio that's in-line with industry standards—but the Overwatch and Hearthstone 

developer wants to change that.

A "global diversity and inclusion initiative" will be launched at Blizzard, according to an internal email acquired by Kotaku.

The diversity push will focus on women first, then expand to include "under represented minority groups," Blizzard president Mike Morhaime said in the email. There won't be quotas for hiring women. Instead, Blizzard will look to its employees to refer more women to open positions, as well as improve its recruiting avenues. Likewise, the company wants to make Blizzard a more welcome place for women and minority groups who already work there. Women, in particular, leave Blizzard "at a higher rate than men," Morhaime said.

 

Read Full Article Here
Google Firing After Conservative Rant Against Women Rubs Both Sides Raw

Why he lost his job

The engineer, James Damore, wrote a memo criticizing Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.” The parts that drew the most outrage made such assertions as women “prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” and have a “lower stress tolerance” and “harder time” leading, while more men “may like coding because it requires systemizing.”

Google’s code of conduct says workers “are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias and unlawful discrimination.” Google’s CEO, Sundar Picahi, said Damore violated this code.


Read Full Article Here
Gender Bias in STEM: An Analysis

Jessica Rowson from the Institute of Physics' Girls in Physics project, talks gender bias and why access to STEM education has wider societal issues.

So first and foremost, we need to make sure that our science teachers are supported so that they can teach physics to the best of their ability, and all students have access to a good physics education. Secondly we need to improve face-to-face careers advice in schools. With no centralised careers service in England, the advice given to students is patchy, and with girls, ethnic-minority, working-class and lower-attaining students less likely to report having had careers advice.


Read Full Article Here
In a recent Gallup study, only 11 percent of corporate executives perceived that college graduates had the skills they were looking for. How can we better prepare the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow?  

In her new book, Teach to Work: How a Mentor, a Mentee and a Project Can Close the Skills Gap in America (Taylor and Francis: March 28, 2017) mentoring expert Patty empowers professionals – whether they are bankers, lawyers, architects, accountants, engineers, IT specialists or artists – to bring their real-world experience and her project based mentoring model into the classroom. 

Compelling and insightful, the book reveals how professionals can embark on a journey to transform lives, mentoring one student at a time.  

“You have made a difference in the lives of these kids, and most likely you have made a difference in the lives of their kids as well. They have grabbed hold of your light, because they feel your encouragement and kindness, and maybe because they had no other. Thank you for your important leadership in this role.” 

— Chris Gardener, Author of The Pursuit of Happyness, 2010 NFTE Dare to Dream speech 

For more information visit  www.teachtowork.com

 
Women’s Quick Facts  brings to life insightful data on the impact of women that everyone should know. From purchasing power, to how efficient women owned companies are with respect to capital compared to men, this book takes the pulse on women in today’s modern economy. Not only does each page compile a broad spectrum of the most current data, it also brings the numbers to life in bite size, easy to read content.

Million Women Mentors | STEMconnector | 202-304-1964 | MWM@STEMconnector.org | www.MillionWomenMentors.org