Thursday Club: The Girls Hacking Club present a 'women in technology' panel.

On Thursday 22nd November I was invited to speak and be part of a panel of experts at by the Girls Hacking Club, part of Goldsmiths' Thursday Club.

The Thursday Club is an open forum for anyone interested in the theories and practices of technologies and state-of-the-art culture.

I was very excited to be invited to be part of a 'women in technology' panel discussing various projects developed to empower women in the IT industry. The panel included a stunning line up of fantastic projects in the UK:

Nela Brown is a sound artist/ technologist and researcher. She is currently doing her PhD at Queen Mary, University of London where she is also a Chair of G.Hack and WISE@QMUL. G.Hack is a collective of female researchers at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science focusing on sharing knowledge and developing interactive media projects through collaboration with other universities, art organizations and industry partners. In 2011 G.Hack received funding from QMUL which kick-started a series of public engagement activities. 
http://nelabrown.blogspot.co.uk http://ghack.eecs.qmul.ac.uk 

Pollie Barden is a visual artist, game designer, web designer and technophile. She earned an M.S.P. from the Interactive Telecommunication Program at New York University and is currently doing her PhD in Media Arts and Technology at Queen Mary, University of London where she is also a member of G.Hack and in charge of co-ordinating departmental qMedia Hack Days. 
http://pabadesigns.com 

Anna-Maria Spehar-Deleze and Salzitsa Anastasova-Ivanova are postdoctoral researchers at the School of Engineering and Material Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London and members of the WISE@QMUL committee. WISE@QMUL (The Women in Science and Engineering Society) was set up in 2008 as an informal group for discussion and networking amongst QMUL students interested in the role of female participation in science. The society currently has 130 members spread across the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and welcomes men as well as women from undergraduate level to professors. In 2012 the society received substantial funding from QMUL, which enabled them to organize seminars, talks, workshops and socials in 2012 and will ensure sustainable growth in years to come. 
http://wiseqmul.wordpress.com 

Paula Graham is a director of Fossbox; a non-profit offering consultancy on collaborative working, peer support and peer training and co-founder of Flossie; a collective of women from digital and arts organisations sharing a common commitment to celebrating and enabling women’s contribution to FLOSS culture. The first Flossie conference was held in May 2012 at Queen Mary University of London and was followed by a 3 day ‘Career Taster’ in October 2012 at The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park. 
www.fossbox.org.uk www.flossie.org 

Heidi Harman is a serial entrepreneur, mentor and speaker and also co-founder of Geek Girl Meetup. She is currently working on her new startup in the mobile finance sector. 
www.geekgirlmeetup.com

Carrie Anne Philbin (yours truly) is a KS3 ICT Subject Leader & Google Certified Teacher at Robert Clack School in Dagenham. She is a Creator of the Geek Gurl Diaries, a youtube video series designed to inspire more teenage girls to take up STEM and Computing subjects. 
www.geekgurldiaries.co.uk @geekgurldiaries 

I was excited to network with these projects to hopefully collaborate with in the future. I'm excited to find female role models in STEM subjects who would be willing to do interviews and perhaps help me run workshops. If you love technology I would recommend getting involved with any if not all of the projects and groups listed above.

Talk Talk Digital Heroes Award 2012

I'm very excited to announce that Carrie Anne Philbin of Geek Gurl Diaries has been nominated for a Digital Heroes Award by Talk Talk and is on of three fantastic finalists in the London region.

She needs your votes! So please vote and tweet about it to your friends:

VOTE FOR CARRIE ANNE

International Day of the Tech Girl

Geek Gurl Diaries have met lots of exciting people over the past few months, but none as exciting as Kim Wilkens whose enthusiasm for teaching and inspiring young people is infectious. Kim introduced me to the day of the tech girl and we decided to mark the day that we would try and get students from both sides of the pond sharing experiences of technology.

Some girls from Robert Clack School in Dagenham Essex, where I teach presented their experiences of our subject ICT in a short video. They talked about what they enjoyed in these lessons and what they would like to do more of, they also asked questions of the students in the USA.

7 and 8th Graders from the Community Public Charter School in Virginia watched the video and asked questions through our chat window:

Kim Wilkens: we just watched the video and they created a response video - I'll post it later

 me: Ok, do they have any questions while the girls are here?

  as we have to leave at 5pm

4:37 PM which is in 20 mins

  The girls say good morning!

 Kim Wilkens: where is the school?

4:38 PM was it 15 or 50 minutes of ICT a week?

 me: school is in East London in a place called Dagenham

  it's on google maps

  50 minutes a week

4:41 PM Kim Wilkens: is that close to bellingham?

  what kind of things do you make with the software you use?

 me: make websites, photoshop images, presentations, documents

  databases

4:42 PM Kim Wilkens: are you able to take what you learn in ICT and use it for other classes?

 me: all for different subjects like english maths or history

  yes students use their ict skills for other lessons

  create many presentations for science

 Kim Wilkens: what is their favorite subject?

 me: Lara says English

4:43 PM Sonakshi says Science!

  Miss Philbin says IT!

 Kim Wilkens: nice!

4:46 PM we're talking food here - what's your favorite? Kian says his fav food is English - shepherds pie, treacle pudding (sp?) & custard

4:47 PM me: We like Chinese food, Nigerian food, chicken, chocolate

  pizza

  we had shepard's pie on the menu at lunch in school canteen

  today

 Kim Wilkens: jealous

4:48 PM me: never heard anyone saying they were jealous of our canteen lunches before!

  now you are making us hungry as it is nearly dinner time

 Kim Wilkens: thank you all so much for sharing - tech challenges and all!

 me: we are going to have to say good bye soon, if you have any questions the girls would be happy to email your students

4:49 PM Kim Wilkens: I'll e-mail you a video link later today (I hope;-)

The female students enjoyed this opportunity to share with students in another country, and they can't wait for their video response (which I have seen, and they are going to love!) Next time we will get a video conference link working and do it in real time.

I'd really like to thank Kim, and Chad Sansing (whose class we interrupted) for sharing in this experience.

Interviewing Women with Google Hangouts

I love this infographic

Over the past month I have connected with many women working in IT who are willing to support what we are trying to do here at Geek Gurl Diaries. However time seems to be my enemy! I don't seem to have the time to edit all the video that I create.

I am hoping that Google Hangouts on Air will be my saviour, as I can have a conversational type interview and instantly upload it to our channel on YouTube without editing. Obviously all the mistakes will just have to stay.

I used this method whilst interviewing Raquel Velez in the U.S. She was so lovely, cool, and down to earth, for someone with such an amazing CV! I hope to get more interviews like this online soon.

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The Only Girl on the Team

It saddens me as an IT teacher that not that many girls take up ICT as a subject in Year 10, Year 12, or beyond. Lately I've started to think about my own experiences not only as a student of ICT but also later in life throughout all my jobs in the sector. I realised that I was the only girl in the department for every IT job that I had. WHY?

Whilst attending a conference on Monday addressing the sate of the ICT curriculum in the UK, I had a brainwave. Why not set up a channel just for girls that could highlight the cool opportunities for girls and women in IT. 

The Geek Gurl Diaries were born. So far I've created a website, designed logos and banners, set up a youtube channel and a blog, and uploaded a video on Ada Lovelace. 

Whats next? More contributions from Geek Gurl's and interviews with women working in IT hopefully!