Tara Chklovski, Iridescent & Anar Simpson, Technovation | Girls in Tech | CUBE Conversation Aug 2017
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 17/08/2017

John Furrier talks with Tara Chklovski Founder and CEO at Iridescent and Anar Simpson Global Ambassador at Technovation at SiliconANGLE Media' new theCUBE Studio in Palo Alto, CA.

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https://siliconangle.com/2017/08/18/technovation-gives-shout-girl-coders-googles-lawn-thecube/

What Google memo? These women are already getting lots of girls into tech

After James Damore’s infamous memo criticizing Google Inc.’s diversity programs hit the public eye Aug. 5, the furor was palpable. Within days, Damore was fired, and his very public battle with the technology giant since then ignited a furious discussion of how and even whether the participation of women and other underrepresented groups in the tech industry should be encouraged.

That discussion no doubt will rage for years to come. But behind the bluster on both sides, a lot of folks have already been rolling up their sleeves and working on the problem instead of simply flapping their gums about it. In particular, a nonprofit called Iridescent has been working for years to bring science, technology, engineering and mathematics education to underserved girls around the world.

As it happened, the awards ceremony of Iridescent’s annual Technovation Challenge World Pitch Competition, in which teams of girls pitched apps they built to solve community problems, was scheduled at Google’s Mountain View, California headquarters on Aug. 11. That was the very day Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai was forced to call off a planned all-hands meeting to discuss diversity in the wake of the Damore memo, because right-leaning groups threatened online harassment of employees. But Pichai did speak at Technovation, making an impassioned plea for women to come to Google and, by extension, other tech companies.

“I want you to know that there’s a place for you in this industry, there’s a place for you at Google,” he told the gathering of more than 900 girls, mentors and other supporters. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You belong here and we need you.”

It’s a message that Iridescent founder and Chief Executive Officer Tara Chklovski (pictured, left) has been pushing for eight years at Iridescent. She and Technovation Global Ambassador Anar Simpson (right), who works as a special adviser for women, girls and technology at Mozilla Corp., spoke this week with SiliconANGLE Media CEO John Furrier at the Palo Alto, California studio of SiliconANGLE’s video unit theCUBE.

The two women provided unusual insight into the issues involved in opening tech up to underserved communities — and those insights weren’t always what you might expect. Simpson, for instance, acknowledged that women may have to be patient about progress in tech, given that it took them a long time to become astronauts, neurosurgeons and lawyers — though Iridescent aims to shorten that time considerably.

Still, she said, the very existence of corporate “inclusion and diversity” departments indicates how far behind many companies are because they indicate the diversity ethic is not suffused throughout the organization by default. “You want to mainstream it,” she said. “I&D departments should have one goal, which is to work themselves out of a job.”

Surprisingly, Simpson also didn’t pile on some entrepreneurs such as Travis Kalanick, founder and former CEO of Uber Technologies Inc., which has been involved with numerous sexual harassment and bias incidents. “Shaking up the status quo is not easy,” she said. “You need somebody who’s a complete a-hole to do that.”

Entrepreneurship for girls
Technovation is the world’s largest technology entrepreneurship program for girls, according to Chklovski, one that was chronicled in “CodeGirl,” a documentary by Academy Award winner Lesley Chilcott. Among the kinds of girls the group serves is one group of 10-year-old girls from Cambodia at the pitch competition this year who created an app to help people working in cottage industries. “These girls would typically never go into careers in tech,” Chklovski said.

Interestingly, Technovation does not scout girls who have demonstrated interest or experience in tech. Instead, middle school to high school-aged girls are challenged to identify a problem in their communities. “And then we say, ‘Oh, by the way, you can solve this problem using technology,'” she explained.

Leading from community issues onward to coding attracts a group of girls who would not otherwise put a toe in tech, Chklovski explained. Once Technovation has captured these girls’ interest, instructors and mentors teach the girls how to code a mobile application. “The programming language that the girls use is block-based, so even though you don’t have a prior programming background, you can still build a working app,” Chklovski said.


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“The discussion has to be very inclusive, and you cannot polarize,” Chklovski concluded