yourself and what you enjoy doing when as you grew up both thank you first of all for having me here i'm very excited to be part of your show so i have told me that when i was your age i really love mathematics i really love doing my math homework and that was the first hint i had that maybe when i grew up i would do something with math so i have this kind of started to really feel and dream for my future and secretly i wanted to be a life even actually i don't know if you guys know about the i wanted to be life you're not cheap and i said maybe i have to pursue a degree in mathematics then i had a situation where i was in high school where my math teacher challenged me and he said he didn't think i could be a you know a stem subject that people would often you know doubt your ability to relate to strive in this subject and yes definitely i think there's a lot of stereotypes not only about being female but also personality wise i am kind of like outgoing at the university didn't really take me very serious one time someone told me i should be like a cruise director or you know entertainment director so they would that was these kind of image that to be  experiences i think there was a lot of people that really wanted to see you know see me succeed i think there were people that thought wow you know she grew up in puerto rico she wants to be a mathematician and is going to be hispanic professionals that share a similar story as mine they came maybe from another country or their parents came from another country you know their first language in many cases is spanish or spanish is being spoken at home but you have all these things in common and that brings you together and i started to volunteer with that organization and i started to really you know do a lot of things when you are part of an affinity group you can help the company so for example help the company by doing like voice recognition in spanish so we who better than also to do it right so that we were helping the company we also the all the activities to help our professional development so we will do like you know if i was really good at the subject i would teach other people about it and i will practice my communication skills my presentation skills and at the same time my peers we learn new topics or new parts of the company but also we care a lot about the community about you so did you find when you were pursuing your degree that you were perhaps a minority among the other classmates are they being female because of your nationality had it affect you yeah definitely i was one of the few females and i was there for only one of the few he spandex actually when sometimes i share my story in different schools one of the things that i tell the students is that i was i really doing something that not a lot of people do anyways but at that college i was i pretty sure i was the first one i was told by a recently which you seem to think so many years later but you know once again even thought that was the case i think i really celebrate that you know my in many different ways sometimes i will have friends and i would teach them how to dance salsa you know sometimes i will cook the food from my country and i would share it people how can i share you know the things that i'm good at and celebrate that so i think we have a choice it doesn't matter what makes us different we have a choice to really teach all their sub out of our you was a shock to me because you know when i was out of work i didn't see that diversity and also in the community when i leave also i didn't see that diversity but then going there you know i was like shocked and then i started talking about line to get my author graph and that was so inspiring to me i feel like wow you know they they really they really were listening and they freely were inspired and one of the girls at the very end she so i was in microsoft and there was like two hundred people in the audience and they were mainly latino professionals and mainly in this them fields and then i had if it took me or three people in there all the in the panel discussion and of thousands of professionals and i say wow eve all of them you know are there are going to say shows they all get involved and all these people in front of me get involved we can't really change the future of the country right if you think about it if one of the reasons why they don't go to college is because of the lack of a role model and now here we are bringing from all those to them we should be able to make a difference and when i came back i quit my job and i decided to  models for the youth so in in their communities where they leave from work so we want to make it easy for them to give back in their communities so they don't have to really you know drive two hours to do it right they're going to look around their communities and and be able to you know take an hour or two from work and be able to step into a classroom to share their stories one of the things i want to share with you is that it's been ten years since i decided to luis and so i'm lot to us so could you tell us what your favorite experience in creating this organization and perhaps reaching out to people has been but i have a big one but i have to tell you about ok of course there's many so it's not easy but this is quite special so since i started this organization you know at the beginning it was one hundred volunteers and for schools now we have twenty nine you know twenty four five and he applied once and got a no i have played again and again and again anyways so this year i got a letter back from nasa saying that your car is going to be the speaker for us so that's like really really amazing and i have to be very honest and you know i think i can share that it made me cry because you know when you kind of like think oh it's not going to have and oh it's not going to happen and then finally you know do you get that yes  i was really i mean that moment was priceless and so that's that was a good question because you know it's really something to be celebrated and it's about perseverance you know when you really want to offer something to all there is sometimes we give up for ourselves but not for all the years and i definitely you know i'm excited about that he will be talking to the students from nasa so we're going to have that you know connectivity with theme and he's going to day which easily bring the professional i mean the student to the corporations for a day at work so they can see or see our offices our buildings and all of that and then the third program is they use conference that i just we're just saying knocking at the door and say look you know you have an amazing story you you did something that some people don't believe some of the latino children in our communities can achieve and we're just inviting them to t have a lot of fast food ration when you gold today nine tenths grain if things have gone kind of not aswell in middle school they are pretty kind of loosing interest and they're losing kind of that be the students understood all so they poured out of high school i mean here are your schools my children school sometimes you know it's like we take it for granted that high school grades are important and that you know that you need to  volunteer work and that you need to have expect who collectively it is that you should do a sport on all those things you know take a p classes and those things you know because of your you know we're very lucky to be in these schools that have that information for you and some of your parents have gone through that but a lot of children don't have those from all this at home you know maybe their parents dating where not lucky enough to complete high school or complete you know college so it's important that very very enjoyable and ok and so there is different things right so if you are told or a college student and you want to share your story you just have to go in our website the information right away and we can follow up with you but also has a high school students you can volunteer for are done essentially we have a lot of data entry i have a lot of students that are helping with data interior or even sometimes doing and i hope that you know somebody watching will definitely reach out to you so from your personal perspective you know being a minority while going through school what's one message that you could say to anybody out in the audience that's going through similar struggle that would help to get through the process all do have to really believe in yourself you have to also not be shy about asking for help i think that's my biggest lesson learned from my journey there was many times where if i had not asked for help i i would not have completed my degree so you know being very humble and reaching out is very important this there's many many lessons learned but if your not doesn't matter what you're stalling then you know when you go in for the launch of the tour and walks through the mechanical engineering department and then the next time maybe go through their psychology department and what you're going to find these  lab and you're going to learn a lot so i and i think also most important remember that power of role models so as you are in college you want to find those people that are inspiring you to continue to work hard not only by the words that they share but by their own stories is very important thank you so much for sharing your story and you know sharing the weep of faith from working you know eighteen thousand than just you know dropping it all to create this organization because you saw there is a need and i totally agree with everything you've said it's really important and thank you for putting this out into our world and for coming on to our show she helps spread even more and make us aware