JENNIFER SHAW: Hi.
Thank you for the nice very warm welcome.
I have never been so honored to be on stage in my entire life,
so thank you for letting me be up here.
I am here representing as a founder of both New York Tech
Women and Bella Minds, specifically
to talk about our programs Bella Minds.
We talked a lot about international women, and just
the amazing things that Google is
doing to help them, the support structure with all
these different platforms.
And I have a slightly different focus,
just in that we're all like very tired and ready
for Pinkberry's, so I just have a few-- I really
like the pressure, like get done, we have things to do.
But I have a few questions for you guys.
Have you guys ever felt excluded from something?
Like just-- yeah?
Yeah, me too.
Do you guys ever feel like maybe you
dream too big, like you have big ideas
and-- yay, there's a few dreamers.
I love you.
So that's kind of me.
I got on this road into tech making,
I actually didn't have a professional technology
background.
My mom taught me databases as a preteen.
That was her idea of, like-- fun?
I don't know.
Which was great, but then when I graduated high school
and was looking to college, I was like, well,
clearly I don't need to go to school for that.
I know everything.
So I didn't.
I went to school for business, and sort of more
went down that path into liaison role between technology
and business, which is really kind of fun.
So I also encourage that as much as I courage tech making.
But what happened is that I moved to New York.
And things were going really well,
I was doing a lot of research in technology, software, wireless,
all sorts of things.
And I kind of ready for the next step.
We mentioned I happen to come from a background
in the Midwest.
And yeah, I did.
I picked up one day and moved to New York on a whim.
And so a couple years later, I just
didn't have enough technology in my life.
And so I went out to find them.
And it was gross.
Really, the problem that I didn't have
was that I felt excluded because it was a male-dominated field.
I actually felt really excluded, because I
didn't feel like the women treated each other very well.
I'll give note that this was several years ago,
and I don't think we're having the same conversation
that we're having now.
So hopefully that's not happening as much anymore.
But it was a real problem, so that's
kind of what came from New York Tech
Woman is that I wanted to create an environment where everyone
felt welcome.
And it didn't matter like what your background was,
what your title was.
Because we all know, especially for those of us
here in New York, that are first conversation's like, hi.
What do you do?
And I don't know about you guys, but that doesn't really
define me very well-- more so now than maybe it did, but I
was doing research in like random tech products.
So it didn't really define me very well.
And I thought, that's just not very fair.
And so what I wanted to do with New York Tech Women
was to create a very all-inclusive environment,
because we have enough problems as it is.
We shouldn't be our own battles.
So anyway, so a little further down the road,
a couple years later, we'd established New York Tech Woman
as a really strong presence in helping women just
understand where their place was in technology
and why they were there and what they could do about it.
And frankly, I just sort of started
to feel that there was a little bit more.
Like New York's amazing culture and there's a lot going on,
but with my Midwest background, I just
felt that there was still something really missing.
And I started getting all these emails.
And it was a big conversation about, well,
we need more diversity.
Do you happen to have a woman who
can fill my blah, blah, blah, tech position?
And I just felt so gross when I would get those emails.
And in case you guys didn't realize,
tokenism is also sexism.
And so that was a real problem for me.
Yes, I want more women in technology,
like more than I want to eat most days.
But the problem right now isn't that we
don't have enough women in technology.
The problem is that we don't have
enough people in technology.
And it'll be really glorious when we get more of them
to be women.
But what I really started to research--
and that just dug me down kind of into a rabbit hole--
was that about 20% of our country is just not online.
Also just coincidentally, about 20% of our country
lives outside metropolitan areas.
So I put kind of my history of being in the boondocks--
and I'm telling you, Carhenge is in the boondocks.
And I thought like, when we talk about diversity--
and obviously today is about gender
and I celebrate that more than anything--
but true diversity comes from every angle.
And so we started to realize that the conversations were
happening in New York and in bigger cities that, you know,
tech and the scenes and the cultures.
But I realized that there was a huge problem with getting
everyone in this country connected
in this blanket of network rather than just
these big hubs.
So I created Bella Minds, which takes city-centric education
models and resources and pairs them with small towns
in America.
So we actually take tech leaders from New York City, Washington
DC, Boston-- Boulder even-- and we place them into small cities
for live, hands-on education.
So I have one more question for you guys.
Has anybody ever taken an online course?
Yeah?
It went really well, right?
OK, leave your hands up.
Leave your hands up.
I took an online course.
Who finished?
Who finished it, like all the way to the end?
Awesome, yeah.
Who retook another one because it was so amazing?
Yeah.
So there's so much study around the way that we learn.
And so what we've learned with the community
is that online education just doesn't cut it.
Think about this-- teach technology with technology.
Like I'm going to learn to code from code?
Hmm.
And I didn't think that that was really quite right.
So I do have a big background in education, and specifically
about education.
So we actually do live, on-site training in small towns
in America, which is really exciting.
I actually just got in, literally this morning,
from being away at our first pilot location.
So we launched in October.
We raised almost $30,000 in crowdfunding.
I don't remember which speaker-- which
one was talking about crowdfunding?
But I want to talk to you.
Anyway, $30,000 in crowdfunding to give 25 women
scholarships to our first program.
So I have just like a small story.
We built program, we built curriculum.
We actually took an Ivy League education,
pairing it with both business school and technology.
Because think about what's missing in the world
and what's required in the world of technology.
Think of it on a scale-- like, for you guys-- zero to ten,
right?
And a truly digital literacy, like if you are technically
illiterate, like a true zero, there are programs for you--
the local school is working for you, probably some YMCA.
There's definitely like some really great government
programs and even school programs
that are helping you combat that.
And then the other hand, we now have programs everywhere
that are teaching tech mastery skills, really
kind of pushing level on that high ten level, right?
Really trying to get it together.
But there's something missing in this middle.
And so that's kind of the goal of Bella Minds is to take
everything that's-- I don't know, envision it,
like maybe a four to like a seven.
And how do we make sure that everybody
is at least over the halfway mark, right?
We have a lot of preaching where we
talk and talk and talk about like, learn to code,
learn to code, learn to code.
And I agree-- learn to code.
But at the same token, for those of us
that are at least semi-technologists in the room,
please stop learning to code, because I have to fix it.
Right?
So like, while I agree, like everyone absolutely
should have this in their resume,
but it's not for everyone.
And that's perfectly OK.
But it is the language of tomorrow.
So that's actually what Bella Minds is working on,
is how do we get them past that barrier
where it really is a true vocabulary?
Because we want to take them from just being consumers
to actual tech creators and tech makers, right?
I use "creators" because that sounds better with my tag.
But to truly make things, and to reiterate to them
that you can make a lot of things.
You can create anything on the internet.
But these are groups of women and in situations
and environments where that's just not brought up for them.
I'm just another-- because I know we're all like really
anxious for the Pinkberry-- so like I'll just
try to keep it light.
Is anybody actually from rural America?
Shoutout, Midwest, yay.
All right, so I just want to hear
from a couple of that would claim Midwest, what happened
when you came to New York, assuming you're here now?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
JENNIFER SHAW: OK, somebody else.
You?
Ohio?
Loveland, Ohio.
AUDIENCE: I made it to Arizona [INAUDIBLE].
Loveland, Ohio.
I was there for 19 years.
People don't leave there.
JENNIFER SHAW: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: They don't know what goes on outside of--
JENNIFER SHAW: No, they don't.
So that's actually what I learned-- no, they
don't know what happens outside Loveland, or Lyons for that
matter.
And that's fine-- kind of.
And to be quite honest, that's like a very American way
of view, right?
I don't know.
When I first moved to New York, I
was like, these people think like the world ends here,
right?
Like, we all know that we live in a bubble in New York.
And so I think it's actually more and American view,
not just like an Ohio or like a New York view or a Nebraska
view.
But what do we have to do to actually
really bridge the gap together?
And so my focus is on mid-career women rather than
young children.
I have seven nieces.
I want them to be tech too.
But what happens is that we're shy, in the next four years
or so, we're missing about a quarter million people
to fill our tech jobs.
That's just in the US.
And right now, we're kind of in a rob Peter,
pay Paul sort of situation.
We're importing about 17% of all our tech talent
from around the world-- which is glorious, thank heaven
for that, because it does truly, truly breed the diversity
conversation.
But when we balance that with the rest of the demographics
of the US and then country and whatnot,
we're really not putting to work the people that we have.
And if we want to keep up as a country,
we actually have a problem now, right?
We actually need women that have worked at the bank,
and they've worked at the vision office,
and they've worked at the reception office
to actually start learning these conversations,
because their background is phenomenal.
We need to make sure that today's teachers are actually
having this conversation.
So that's my focus with Bella Minds,
is that as much as, yes, we need a strong pipeline
and that everybody should be mentoring a young woman,
I just strongly, strongly encourage everyone in this room
to reach out with somebody who just like really just
doesn't want to participate in this conversation
and start talking to them about the potential.
So age doesn't matter.
You can learn something regardless.
So we actually just finished our pilot program in Nebraska.
I did it on my hometown, which was really pretty glorious.
And I did it with 10 people that I knew.
That seemed safe, until I learned so much about it.
And so I think I'll just share with you my biggest finding,
because honestly I haven't had a chance to look at the research.
I've been gone.
But the biggest finding is that we
built a program that was one week, live-intensive,
with mentors on site for them.
And then we have a follow-up eight-week program for them
so that they can actually virtually understand
what that communication looks like,
because that's that middle mushy part-- logic
and problem solving and working with remote teams
and understanding different cultures and problem solving
and thinking about things.
It's not actually sitting down and writing code.
And so the biggest finding that I had
were two women in the middle of our week
together who had never had internet in their house.
It wasn't a matter of not affording or not available--
it was seriously not a priority.
They just didn't care.
They had no idea what tech could do for them,
or like what advantage there was to them.
And by like day three, two-- and I
think maybe a third woman-- went out and installed high speed
4G to their house.
Right, so that to me is like, I almost
don't care about like the rest of the research,
because to me that speaks for the rest of it.
It simply is just not a priority for the world.
And unfortunately, we just have to have
that for this country in order for us to participate wholly
and to participate now, right?
We don't have a problem in seven years
when my niece graduates high school.
We have a problem now in terms of tech talent.
So that's what I'm working on with Bella Minds.
Yeah, I don't think we're doing questions.
And I'll be really honest, I'm going to keep it short.
You guys all want Pinkberry.
I want Pinkberry.
[INAUDIBLE]
It's tiring, it's longer in the day.
But I do encourage you to two things.
Again, make sure that you reach out.
And I don't mean just reach out to a young girl who needs help.
Make sure you reach out to your mother and your sister
and your aunt, to your next-door neighbor, like whatever
it means-- your bank teller, spread the Gospel if you will,
that technology is just so incredibly powerful.
It doesn't necessarily mean that they
have to be the next developer of Google.
But to participate in the language is really important.
So reach out to somebody.
And I can help with that if you need.
So that's Bella Minds.
And hopefully you'll have questions later.
But thank you all for having me here today to talk about it.
[APPLAUSE]