Changing the Culture of Tech

Our Vision is to bring gender parity back to Tech.

In 1948, the Math department of Bell Laboratories, the most prolific inventor of fundamental technologies, was gender balanced with nearly 50% women. Today, only about 26% of the US Tech workforce are women. 

This is an alarming discrepancy, especially during the current AI revolution, when software, designed and trained by humans, is increasingly becoming the decision maker of our society. Software is in every aspect of our lives. Without equitable gender representation in the Tech workforce, smart machines will become biased, resulting in serious negative consequences.

Additionally, in the last few years, the U.S. has fallen to second place (globally) in both published research papers and patents filed.   The U.S. is also dwarfed in the number of  STEM graduates by China and India.  The World Economic Forum recently reported that China had 4.7 million STEM graduates in 2016. India had 2.6 million new STEM graduates last year while the U.S. had 568,000.

For decades, the United States had the highest proportion of people obtaining university degrees. Reflecting this former supremacy, among 55 to 64 year olds, almost a third of all graduates in the world's major economies are US citizens. But this is changing rapidly, by 2030, China and India could account for more than 60% of the STEM graduates in major economies, compared with only 8% in Europe and 4% in the United States.

The U.S. cannot maintain its role as the leader of the world if it is not the global economic leader.  And it cannot be the global economic leader if it is not the Tech leader.  The U.S. will not continue to be the Tech leader if we drive half the talent away from working in the Tech sector. 

Girls, today, are 70% of high school valedictorians and take nearly 50% of AP calculus and AP statistics exams.  Girls are obviously capable of working in Tech given these facts and the fact that women were the first computer programmers.  But, girls are being socially excluded from Tech.

There are several major societal barriers contributing to this problem:

• Girls are not encouraged to learn coding or Tech.

• Lack of female characters in Tech in entertainment media. 

• Important contributions by women in Tech are not featured in historical records.

• Many workplaces do not provide a welcoming environment in the hiring, retention and development of women in the Tech sector.

Our solution is to bring gender parity back to the Tech field by encouraging and empowering girls and women to pursue computing/Tech education and careers through increased education and awareness, influencing workplace policies/practices and advocating for positive media portrayals.

Specific projects and services include:

    - Giving presentations and hands-on activities to school aged girls and their parents/guardians/educators to learn about Tech and artificial intelligence and how they are used in the real world. 

   - Supporting grades 6 - 12 students, college  students, parents and guardians, with Panel Discussions consisting of professional and university women (and men) sharing their Tech journey, career advice, insights on choosing majors and classes, navigating internships, and area activities relating to Tech. 

    - Working with Illinois Congress members to form an Illinois state task force, in collaboration with Illinois businesses, to share best practices to make the Tech workplace welcoming for women, and to work with state officials on policies and incentives.

   - Collaborating with Hollywood contacts to get more female Tech characters represented in a positive way in movies and television shows.  We are planning virtual and in-person summits to educate Hollywood on the history of women in Tech and the importance of bringing women back to the field as well as to brainstorm concrete actions that Hollywood can do to help.

-  Planning to work with Children’s Museums to create exhibits to include girls in Tech.

- Updating Wikipedia to include more Women in Computing.

Each of our activities are directed at women and girls with an interest in Tech, although each activity provides education and support at different levels to meet various needs. Starting with younger girls in elementary school, our hands-on outreach programs allow them to experience Tech through videos and AI games that give them real experience and understanding of how AI works, how AI can be used to solve real world problems, and how they can continue to learn more about AI. Continuing education for older girls Jr. High through college includes panel discussions and opportunities for interaction with women in Tech. This format provides additional information on preparing for a career in Tech, consideration of the many different jobs available in Tech, as well as insight on how to grow in a career in Tech. Across all of our education programs, a key component is demonstrating the active roles women already have in Tech as all of us women presenters have a Tech background. On occasion, our youth outreach includes both boys and girls. At those times, we have the opportunity to teach both the Tech information we come to provide and that women are leaders in Tech in the workplace.

The impact of visible role models of women in Tech is also behind our efforts to affect change in Hollywood movies and television shows. By showing positive portrayals of women in Tech in this way, we normalize women in these roles. This impacts not only young girls who ‘can be what they see’, but also young boys, caregivers, counselors, and peers to acknowledge and accept that women can have strong roles in Tech. The expected impact of this is two-fold, encouraging girls and young women to have an interest in Tech, and creating a more supportive work environment for women in Tech. Similar impacts have been seen from CSI increasing women in forensic science, Grey’s Anatomy increasing women in medicine, and L.A. Law increasing the number of women in the legal profession. 

Working with Illinois lawmakers to create a task force focused on improving the work environment for women in Tech is directly focused on retaining women in Tech. Sharing best practices and encouraging businesses to follow them will increase the number of women hired in Tech, ensure they are recognized for their contributions, and promoted to positions of leadership based on those contributions. A key best practice includes sharing data on the business benefits of having a diverse and inclusive workforce. Studies have shown that D&I impacts the bottom line in employee satisfaction and retention, increased innovation, and increased customer satisfaction. This effort will increase opportunities for Illinois Tech companies as they increase D&I and improve their products as a result.

Most of the Vision 1948 team are women technologists with Bell Laboratories roots who have a passion to leverage their knowledge and experience to change the face of Tech. We draw heavily on our own experiences to understand what kinds of activities and programs encourage young girls to get interested in Tech, encourage them to stay interested during the teen years when many girls are discouraged by current Tech stereotypes, and help them get the support and recognition to stay in Tech once they embark on a Tech career path. We’ve tailored our education materials based on learnings and feedback from similar presentations over several years, finding out what is effective (or not) at reaching audiences of different ages. For example, we’ve used the AI materials with different age groups, incorporating age-appropriate videos and discussions to be most effective with each audience. We’ve engaged with young women in college through the early years of their Tech career from outside of our group to support our panel and video discussions by providing additional perspectives on the myriad of Tech career options. 

The scope of our youth programs include:

1. A local girls mentoring organization, Polished Pebbles, where one of our team is a Board member

2. Local schools where one of our team is an alumni association Board member for Lane Tech, a high school with one of the nation’s largest computer science programs, and where our networks include members of school staff

3. American Association of University Women (AAUW) global and local chapters

4. Partnership with local high school STEM teachers and Girls in STEM club, leveraging their insights on key factors driving school-aged girls towards Tech.
   

We work closely with the staff and program coordinators in these organizations to ensure our programs are meeting their needs as well as the needs of the youth we meet with. That we have been invited back year after year to address different age groups and different communities among the local programs highlights our success in increasing interest in Tech careers among the local youth.

As women with long careers in Tech, our Illinois lawmakers have appreciated the insights we bring to the formation of a task force focused on retaining women in Tech. Over the years, we have built networks with women in other companies, many of whom share similar experiences. Our networks simplified the identification of local companies to include in the task force. Bringing the understanding of our experiences, what has helped or hindered our careers, provides a meaningful basis for establishing best practices in hiring, recognizing, and promoting women in Tech. 

Several of our team are involved in a program to address female retention at Nokia. This effort is identifying specific actions to take to make the environment more inclusive in both breadth and depth of the employee structure. Results of this work will enable us to bring specific recommendations to the Illinois task force related to retaining women in Tech.

In 2022 (our first full year), we reached 50 school aged girls and 150 adults, who attended our different events.

We would like the Solve and Tiger Global Impact Ventures to help us scale our impact by:

- Helping us to determine what our needs are to scale our offerings.

- Helping us to network and reach other volunteers to replicate our offerings to other states within the US.

- Providing leadership coaching to help us maximize our potential.

- Helping further scale our impact and influence on Hollywood. 

- Helping us to get funding for a Children's Museum Exhibit.

Laurie recently retired after working in Tech, supporting various aspects of software development in telecommunications (AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia), for 32 years. For many of these years, she helped to support technical demonstrations for young girls on "Take Our Daughters to Work day". She also was an active member in the workplace women groups, advocating for good working conditions for women in the technology workplace.  

We believe that to solve this problem, a multi-prong approach is required to address the root cause - which is our culture.  Many historical and sociological studies have been done to understand how computing started out as being considered “women’s work” then transitioned to the current preference for men and amnesia about women’s contributions.  

Both conscious and unconscious societal and cultural actions created this change in computing workforce demographics.  So, societal and cultural actions are needed to bring women back to Tech.  

Given that computing was once thought of as “women’s work” and that originally male-dominated fields such as journalism, medicine, law, forensic science, business and finance are at or near gender balanced - reaching parity at roughly 40 years after the height of the women’s movement - we believe that it is possible for Tech to return to gender parity in less time.

Our education and outreach programs trace the history of Tech, highlighting the often overlooked role of women in the past, explaining the societal and cultural actions that led to the current Tech demographic and propose ways to shift that demographic once again to become a more diverse and inclusive Tech field. By sharing the history with youth, parents, educators, we make it clear that there are no innate reasons to prevent girls and women from being leaders in Tech. By being the presenters to diverse audiences, we demonstrate our own presence and leadership in the field; making it clear that others can and should join us. We have recently done several education sessions with different AAUW chapters to encourage others to follow our example and provide similar outreach programs in their own communities. By gaining exposure to even broader audiences through our media and adult education programs, we hope to expand the reach of our message beyond the Chicagoland area.

Ultimately, massive, scalable broadcast and viral spread of education approaches coupled with government incentives is required to make cultural change as the Rosie the Riveter movement proved during World War II. We believe that we are in another Rosie the Riveter moment.  And we need a Rosie the Riveter solution.

Our one year goals: 

i) Interact with 300 school aged girls, to increase awareness and interest of opportunities for women in Tech.

ii) Interact with 800 parents, guardians, educators, advocates and influencers to increase awareness and interest of opportunities for women in Tech.

How we will do this: 

1. Catalog, market, and build on offerings (demonstrations, webcasts) to expose young people to Tech careers. (Impact ~100 students/200 adults)

2. Support panel discussions, consisting of professional and university women (and men) sharing their Tech journey, career advice, insights on choosing majors and classes, navigating internships, and area activities relating to Tech. (Impact ~100 students)

3. Utilize our new website to advertise our services and provide information about women in Tech, both historically and today.(Impact ~100 students/100 adults)

4. Hold a summit with people from Hollywood (producers, writers, directors, etc.), to introduce them to the issue of lack of women in Tech, and ask for their help to positively portray more women in computer science and Tech roles in movies and TV shows. (Impact ~100 adults/influencers)

5. Continue to work with Illinois congress people to create a proposal for a “Women in Tech Task Force” to be brought to the Illinois Congress for consideration. (Impact ~400 adults)

Five year goals:

i) Reach over 3,000,000 school aged girls, to increase awareness and interest of opportunities for women in Tech.

ii) Reach over 10,000,000 parents, guardians, educators, advocates and influencers to increase awareness and interest of opportunities for women in Tech.

How we will do this: 

1. Recruit and train other people to help provide the offerings to expose young people to Tech careers, especially in states outside of Illinois. (Impact ~500 students/ 500 adults)

2. Record videos of professional and university women in Tech, sharing their insights. Provide these videos on our website and advertise them. (Impact ~1000 students/1000 adults)

3. Make updates to Wikipedia to document more historical impacts of women in Tech. (Impact ~20,000 students/ 20,000 adults)

4. Continue to work with Hollywood personnel to produce movies and TV shows, and add more characters to existing shows, to positively portray women in Tech. (Impact ~3 million students/ 10 million adults)

5. Continue to work with Illinois Congress people to get legislation passed to support a “Women in Tech Task Force”. Network with people in other states to get similar legislation passed there. (Impact ~500,000 adults)

6. Work with Children’s Museums to create exhibits to include girls in Tech. Start with one in Illinois, and then network with people in other states to support similar exhibits.(Impact ~100,000 students/50,000 adults)

7. Identify and nominate a woman for the ACM Turing Award. (Impact ~50,000 adults)

We are measuring our progress by keeping track of the number of school aged girls, and the number of adults, which we have reached through our efforts. For example, in 2022 (our first full year), we reached 50 school aged girls and 150 adults, who attended our different events. In the next few years, this number should also include:

i) Number of page views on our Wikipedia page updates, and our own Vision 1948 Website.

ii) Number of people attending DuPage Children’s Museum exhibit.

iii) Number of people viewing new or updated TV shows or movies.

iv) Number of Tech employees impacted by Illinois Tech Task Force.

v) Number of members in ACM, who learn about the women in Tech we propose for the ACM Turing Award.

The expected impact of our solution derives from the “if she can see it, she can be it” approach. The impact of this approach has been demonstrated in other fields, as noted in responses to prior questions with links to what is commonly known as ‘the CSI Effect’.

In the near term, our influence is limited to the immediate audiences we are able to reach through our outreach to youth and adults. We demonstrate the visible leadership of women in Tech by our very presence. Showing kids of all ages and genders, as well as their parents, teachers, and care-givers, that women ARE in Tech today, while pointing out the need to increase the numbers of women in Tech going forward. Through our AI-focused outreach activities, we highlight the positive impacts that can be achieved by increasing diversity in Tech. Our outreach activities showcase the possibilities of Tech careers for women. By including not only our own experiences but also those of young women still in school or in the early stages of their careers, we show the breadth of opportunities in Tech. As more of the world goes online, all of these careers can be paired with any number of fields from art, through healthcare and sports, to zoology.

For the mid-term, our outreach to adults is focused on scaling through recruitment of additional messengers. We encourage others to learn from our outreach model, putting it into practice in their own communities. Similarly, our activities focused on spreading the word of women’s past roles in Tech is expected to increase awareness that not only are women capable of being Tech leaders, women actually drove much of the initial development of the Tech industry before being pushed out to make way for men to enter the field.

For the long term, our efforts with Hollywood and the IL legislature are expected to increase normalization of women in Tech. Having Hollywood support to include prominent, successful, appealing portrayals of women in Tech in films and TV shows replicates ‘the CSI Effect’. This effort to create societal normalization of women in Tech impacts not only the girls and young women who we hope will enter the field in coming years, but it also impacts the women and their colleagues who are currently working in Tech - giving credence to these and demonstrating the respect women in Tech deserve from their colleagues. The latter is a necessary step in retaining women in Tech as the sometimes hostile environments of today’s workplaces too often drive women out of Tech. This also ties in with the IL legislature task group for retaining women in Tech by establishing best practices for retention, i.e., by getting companies together to share best practices, and including the legislature to consider incentives for adopting those best practices, we can improve the work environment from the inside while using the Hollywood approach to influence from the outside.

Our solution is supported by Tech tools but is not directly Tech-based as has been described in answers to the other questions in this application. We currently provide a human but scalable touch to our solution for our audience with the intent to make it resonate more personally.

We have a website that shares logistics and other information for our activities as well as profiles of notable Women in Tech to educate our visitors.  We use virtual meeting and collaboration apps such as Zoom to support scalable panel discussions and online education sessions.  We use tools to create role model interview videos with young Women in Tech to inspire others to follow their lead.  Our education sessions, whether in person or online, leverage publicly available virtual games, hands-on education kits, trivia contests/quizzes and apps such as ChatGPT and Dall-e.

Our Vision 1948 team is an initiative of (sub-team within) AAUW Naperville.

AAUW Naperville has provided Vision 1948 with an initial investment and the protection of a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. AAUW Naperville must approve of Vision 1948 activities and holds a yearly review with Vision 1948 regarding goals and progress.

Our Vision 1948 team currently includes 9 part-time (all volunteer) members.

We also have recruited 7 other volunteers to help with career panels and presentations/hands-on demonstrations.

We started working on our solution in September, 2021.

Our diverse leadership and team comprises women from various racial backgrounds. Our volunteers form a multi-generational group of women, ranging from high school students to retired professionals, also representing diverse races, experience levels and Tech backgrounds. When we select panelists and volunteers for a specific event, we take into consideration the demographics of the audience and make our selection so that the audience will better relate. 

It's important to note that while our organization focuses on empowering women, we warmly welcome individuals of all gender identities who share our passion for addressing the prevalent cultural attitudes that deter girls from pursuing careers in Tech and hinder the progress of women already in the field.

Our key beneficiaries are females who are, or may be, interested in studying and working in the Tech area.

Our products, services, and outreach are intended to:

- Spark and support girls' interest in Tech.

- Provide information to girls regarding how to continue their studies in Tech.

- Provide support for women working in Tech.

- Return the culture of Tech to where it is considered normal for women to work in Tech, as it was in the past.

Our products and services cover the following areas:

a) Education: We put together and present Tech related educational packages (presentations and hands-on activities), for example in AI, for students and adults, to teach them about Tech and its use in the real world. We also put together career panels with females studying and working in Tech to discuss their journeys with female students. We provide these services to various schools, and through virtual sessions with AAUW, including the AAUW STEM ED for Girls and different AAUW branch offerings.

b) Public Awareness: We plan to support projects like the following, to make the general public more aware of women’s roles in Tech:

     i) Creating an exhibit for children’s museums to expose children to the idea that girls can be part of Tech.

    ii) Supporting a public statues project (perhaps leveraging the orange statues projects supported by If/Then ), with a focus on women in Tech.

    iii)  Updating Wikipedia to include women in Tech whose contributions have not yet been documented for the general public.

c) Workplace policies/practices: We are currently working with Illinois Congressional members to form a state task force, to make Tech workplaces welcoming for women. We plan to work with various Illinois businesses to support this taskforce.

d) Positive media portrayals: We are collaborating with Hollywood contacts to get more female Tech characters represented in a positive way in movies and television shows.  We are planning virtual and in-person summits to educate Hollywood on the history of women in Tech and the importance of bringing women back to the field as well as to brainstorm concrete actions that Hollywood can do to help.

Vision 1948 is initially being funded by the Naperville, Illinois branch of AAUW.  Going forward, we plan to continue our funding by reaching out for: grants, private donations, and sponsorships from companies.

Currently, we are being funded by the STEM budget ($2000) of AAUW Naperville, which originally came from a private donation. For our Hollywood efforts, we are in discussions for a $5000 sponsorship from Nokia to help pay for the in person summit we are planning.