Numiko Girls go Girl Geeking
Last night, four Numiko girls went to Leeds’ first ‘Girl Geek Dinner‘. After a bit of networking and lots of finger food, we settled down for the talks, the first of which was from Girl Geek founder Sarah Blow – via a video post. In the post, Sarah challenged all Geeks to think about how we can change the technology industry to encourage more Girl and Guy Geeks into the industry; taking into account the disputes between what people consider IT and ICT to be, and what it actually is.
To inject a level of science into the debate, Sarah Blow went to a primary school in London to ask the kids what they thought IT was. The answers in summary were that they thought it was basic word processing and perhaps a little programming. There was no comprehension of such things as Facebook, Myspace, their computer games etc, having anything to do with IT.
A brief discussion at Numiko threw up that when people think IT, they usually think number crunching, and, mostly due to they way they were taught maths at school, they write IT off as a potential career as they’ve been put off by previous experience and lack of awareness as to what IT actually is.
It was clear that syllabuses (syllabi?) in schools should be adjusted to take account of the changing online digital and interactive worlds and the career opportunities presented as a result – summed up by Clare who said she would never have connected the job she does now (web developer) to anything that was taught at school, including IT.
The second speaker – who was there in person which was a bonus – was Lydia Machell who ‘was inspired by early ringtone formulas’. Needless to say we were a little hesitant, but it turned out that early ringtones had in fact inspired her to develop something which transcribes standard print notation into Braille for blind musicians. I can’t seem to find anything on Google (after a very quick search) worth linking to, but if you want to conduct your own search try ‘Prima Vista Music’.
The last and final speaker was Lorna Mitchell who encouraged us to ask questions, and be proud, not scared by being representative of the minority.
All in all, a great evening with inspiring and informative speakers!
