Tech Talks

Start inspiring girls at a young age with roles models, exposure, and education that fosters a vision of their future that is technology-enabled. Volunteer role models will use standard plans for monthly, one-hour sessions in Elementary schools showcasing their personal success and building awareness of how they leveraged technology.

We will create a program to enable technology awareness and education in elementary schools that is delivered by a volunteer workforce of female role models. The all-women program staff will incorporate their personal experiences in the lessons plans and intuitively connect with the volunteer workforce.  The program will solicit volunteers from the community so that the students see neighborhood Moms bringing technology to life for them.

The volunteers will be taught about the lessons plans through on-demand, web-based video and supported with scheduled team online chat and one-on-one video chat.  They will be provided with visual aids and other technologies to teach students different lessons such as coding, cloud technology, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and other innovations.

The lessons will be simplified to appeal to elementary students and coupled with an activity to give students a hands-on opportunity to practice or interact with the technology they just learned about. The ultimate goal for this program is to inspire students, especially girls, by having women come in and teach. Seeing women carry knowledge about technology will serve as an example and break pre-conceptions students may have about “female careers.”

By introducing technology at an early age, we hope to elevate it to be on par with arts education in school and normalize its role as acceptable female-careers. When implemented at scale, community volunteers would have gained confidence as technology role models and it will make academic and career path in STEM as desirable as teachers, doctors, and firemen from an early age.

This solution will elevate technology to same level as arts education, providing students with technical knowledge and inspire careers in technology at a young age. Women will be established as leaders, educators, and role models for technology for both girls and boys. Female volunteers of all backgrounds can gain confidence by learning and teaching about technology. In turn, all of these benefits will prevent misconceptions about women in technology from ever forming in young minds.

We have experienced the power of inspiration by example. Neha, 19, works with Girls Who Code to close the gender gap in STEM. As women from different technology companies come into the classrooms to inspire the girls with their stories, Neha became motivated to become a mentor for the program now, to inspire just she had been. Varsha, 21, pursed a career in cloud technology after constant conversation with family friends, both successful women in STEM. Strong role models enabled her own change away from stereotypes and she plans to motivate the same in others.

Our solution elevates technology education in academic curriculum to the level of music or arts, starting at the Elementary school level. It also solidifies the role of females in technology by having community women present the technology in the classrooms.  Solve and the Bhargava Sisters will recruit women in successful STEM careers to lead and inspire with lesson plans they create using their personal experiences. That will launch the cycle of female volunteers who gain confidence by learning and teaching technology. In turn, students will become technology aware early on and avoid misconceptions about female careers in tech.

Track schools with Tech Talks in place via sign up history - In the first 3 years, 5, 50, 300 schools respectively will have Tech Talks in place

Survey students at the end of the school year - At year-end, 50% of girls surveyed would select a STEM field as a future career choice

Survey students at the end of the school year - At year-end, 50% of boys surveyed would select all STEM fields to viable careers for females.

Elementary school students are not typically exposed to technology education. Tech Talks is focused on disseminating technical knowledge from the formative years rather than high school and beyond. Young students will see their mothers and other adults in their own community teach about technology, making them less intimidated by the subject. Volunteers will feel like they make a difference in youth education while hands-on activities will give students a chance to familiarize themselves with technology they have learned about.  The exclusively female volunteers will break away from stereotypes of technical careers being a male domain.

Our program is a complete circle of leveraging women’s success in technology to enable others to achieve the same. We start with women who have experienced the difficulties and overcame them to become successful in STEM. With lessons plans they create with their personal challenges in mind, they enable female volunteers interested in learning and teaching to empower the next generation. These volunteers teach children in their communities that would have otherwise had little technology awareness, who then grown up familiar with technology and inspired by the lessons for technical careers. We will expand the program community-by-community.

Our solution relies on accessing elementary school students in their classroom for an hour each month. This program will prove its viability with a start in well-to-do communities.  Then with funds from the PTA, parents, and eventually sponsors, Tech Talks could be brought into underserved communities. Through networking and cold calling, we would approach successful women in STEM to help design lessons on technology. After briefing via video and approval from schools, female volunteers would to teach for one hour monthly to elementary school students. All materials for use in the class room will be provided over the Internet.

We have already established the initial network of successful women in STEM willing to work with us to create the initial create lesson plans suitable for woman to learn and teach to young students. Using the funds and awareness that comes from Solve sponsorship we shall expand our volunteer base to convert the lesson plans into lessons and in-class collateral.  We will use some of the funds to assist in additional fund raising from within our network.  The funding will be used for developing and management organized volunteers and their learning and teaching schedules with the targeted communities.  For the hands-on component, we would start by using laptops that schools already have on site, in well-to-do school districts until funds from PTA, sponsors, and parents allow us to expand Tech Talks in schools with less resources.

Limiting factors include finding volunteers in communities, finding successful women willing to donate their time to develop lesson plans, raising funds for increased technology resources and laptops, and cooperation from schools to allow time to students to learn about technology.  Local language translation and cultural context are latter stage limitations to scale.

We are fortunate to have easy access to technology and surrounded by people who encourage women in STEM. We want to provide the same support structure to everyone by stopping misconceptions about women in STEM before they arise and redefining what constitutes as feminine careers. Solve will provide us with a network and mentors ready to help other women grow. Being young, we lack resources needed to accomplish our goals on our own. With the support of Solve, we will be able to provide good resources to volunteers, test lesson plans, get sponsors, and expand the program. 

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