At Philly Emerging Tech some girls from TechGirlz came into meet with me and Molly Holzschlag. I think we were supposed to be role models for them but two minutes into the meeting, I realized the girls were the role models!
One of the girls was already writing a game in Python and had already considered the benefits of open sourcing it or not. Another was concerned with the lack of emotion you can convey in a text message and how we might be able to improve that. A third girl had already set up her own dog treat business complete with an online presence. And the youngest in the group? She was in a Lego club and could build and program computer robots. Her teacher? An older girl in the group. These girls ranged in ages from 8 to 15 and they were already accomplishing amazing things.
We talked about careers in tech, how you can take technology into other fields, the things that frustrated them, the things that motivated them, … I sure learned a lot and came away motivated!
For more on what we talked about read Todd Weiss’ excellent recap.
Thanks to Tracey Welson-Rossman for TechGirlz and for inviting me to participate.