Dare 2b Digital Debrief

Numbers:

82 parents

40 speakers

20 staff

242 young women (some name tags were left). High satisfaction rate.

Reviews

Two negative reviews: class/instructor went too fast. No one helped when they needed assistance. The problem might have been proctor training.

Problems/Kids

Too much waiting in line for the keynote.

Girls did not like food, parents did. Potato chips were expired. Fruit was missing.

Kodu had computer issues.

Some girls went into workshops that had filled up. Giveaways ran out (mostly at Pixar).

Lunch – girls wanted to explore campus, get out of the lunchroom.

A lot said workshops too short. Want more workshops.

Many want to come back next year.

First keynote too long. Interviewer questions were a bit disconnected. Parents didn’t like keynote. High-schools girls more positive.

Raffle too long and some felt it was unfair. Parents names were in there too.

Last keynote too complicated. Sound quality not good. Too NASA/science heavy.

Most want to go next year.

Volunteer Feedback

Volunteers needed badges to be identifiable.

Parking signs weren’t up early enough.

Attendee lists were not sorted correctly.

Shirts: get extra shirts next time. Especially for volunteers. Nina mostly had issues with speaker shirts. There were not enough.

Plastic print on back caused sweat-stain.

Orientation with balloons: make a main street and mark it with one color. Put other colors on hot spots to the side and mark everything on the map.

Getting kids to their groups after keynote was a problem. It was hard for parents to find their groups.

The parents classes were very cookie cutter, the same old.

Tammy: need better way to map class name to room number. It was hard to match them.

Software loading: 45% failure rate. Didn’t install. Incorrectly installed. In the end presenters didn’t use what they requested. It is important for the presenters to test it.

The cameras weren’t compatible with the computers, plug-wise. Victor saved the day by hooking it up to the TV.

It was very hard to get requirements from the speakers.

Parents Feedback

Want counselors from high school. Want for girls and boys.

Financial workshop targeted for high school. Overview was missing.

Couldn’t find restrooms. They were removed from map.

Better advertising to schools needed. Was not advertised properly. –> we need a network and more pre-work.

There was a good spread of schools. Space was scarce in the end. 

How to keep girls in the loop for follow-up and next year?

Comments on the web site and fan page.

Post Facts and numbers.

Mercury news was on the way but got called to an earthquake. Radio interview with Anne & Ruth. Bloggers at the conference.

Re-list sponsors and give them feedback and thanks.

Interest from women in Toronto, CAN. Elizabeth Vanderbelt.

Have to send out a short email to maintain the connection. Come back to work as proctor.

Following up with parents would be a good idea. Maybe better to use the Facebook fan page. Allow them to post code, robot pictures, etc.

FB web page is mostly adults.  Next time need to prepare post-conference social group ahead of time.

Future events: Invent your future – conference. Has student track. Kenny can organize event with a weeks notice.

Next time

There is definitively a demand.

Where? SF, SAC, Southern CA, Israel.

Not-for-profit? Different legal structure. Ruth thinking about it. Gather information.

Steering Committee Meeting 12/4/2009

Attending:

Ellen McClatchey (Symantec)

Anne Hardy (SAP)

Kenny Spade (Microsoft)

Nina Bhatti (HP Labs)

Ruth Stergiou (Invent Your Future)

Tammy Baker

Martin Stein [Notes]

 

MSBLocalActs@listserv.acm.org is the mailing list.

We have a contact at Pixar. Keynote.

TODO: MS: Parent education lady @ SacState.

Kenny has a talk for security & privacy online. Plus privacy talk. Can make content available.

Symantec has talks for parents.

TODO: MS: David Calkins (Lego) contact again! Ask for team to show off their robots!

Logistics: Tammy got the budget.

Wow – that’s engineering – Disney show in LA. Ellen mentioned video.

Marketing

Ruth has a list of contacts.

Nina mentions ads for local newspapers.

Contact schoolloop? TODO: MS

Contact Outlets –schools, girlscouts, private schools. TODO: MS: talk to Anne Hipkins

There will be a follow up call with Chris and Michelle.

Sponsorship

Still pondering: Microsoft, Rambus, Northrup-G, Intuit.

Symantec, yes

Workshops

 

Keynote

I do this cool thing.

I did this real helpful thing.

Time?

 

Raffle at the end

put number on evaluation form. Use for drawing.

Certificate of Completion

pick up at end. Cheap to produce. Many people treasure them.

TODO: MS: Facebook fans or group page. Decide which one to do, set up. Upcoming.org etc sites set up.

http://www.mitcnc.org

TODO: MS: ask Dawn Fritz if they do background checks.

If you need volunteers go to Kenny.

D2BD Kickoff Meeting minutes

Attending:

Kenny (Microsoft) phone
Anna () phone
Katharina Rock (SAP)
Laura Deck (IYF)
Martin Stein
Anne Hardy (SAP)
Diana
(Intuit)

ACM-W – not directly important for the conference, but important for their marketing.

Underserved commmunities: Contra-costa county (arrange busses), E-PA. Appoint one volunteer of the steering commitee. Anna will look into it. We have to set up: chaperone on busses, rent bus, insurance, logistics. Laura D will take it on.

Sponsorship commited: SAP, Cisco,

Sponsorship under discussion: Google,  Intuit, Symantec,  Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Adobe.

Fee: $20 - idea: add a  fee waiver.

Production: web site. (TODO Laura)

How many volunteers? 1 per 10 girls for chaperon. 50 total?

Colleges for volunteers: foothill, de anza (Kenny talked to them), SJ state (MIS dep, Kenny), Stanford?,  -- problem only 20% women in student body.

High schools: hire girls in science and math from high school. $500 for college?

ACM student chapters! (TODO MS)

Academy of information technology: San Francisco group of schools.

Guidelines:

Hands-on workshops

Movement

Keynotes - upto 1h, entertaining: Pixar, Facebook

Train the trainer: Lynn Langit, Michelle

Schedule:

Keynote

Pixar, Microsoft/Milo,

Ignite talk format? See here or here

One in the morning and one at the end.

Have to decide how many workshops per day (2  or 3).

Surprising inventions women have done?

Length of workshops? 60 – 90 minutes.

Hand out a book funded from donations.

Possible topics:

* Pervasive computing (computers everywhere). Nokia! (TODO: MS, AH). Take pictures and post to a server.

* Robotics, Sun-spots from sun labs?

* Social networking

Workshops fill in the blanks in a existing program.

* Tina Seelig – infectious action – problem is that high-school girls are somewhat shy and inhibited in groups.

* Google Earth – street view – microsoft touch?

Parent track:

Security

Teachers – how collaborate in the classroom

TTT – train the trainer session

Raising girls without preconceived notions.

ACM participation? Career prospects. (TODO MS). STEM program. (TODO AH)

Gifts:

meaningful giveaway, desirable.

Backpack? Bag?

Sponsorship

Max $5000, less possible.

$20k bare minimum (Laura)

Martin

Web sites for women and girls

 

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/links_girls.html

 

 

Women-Related Web Sites in Science/Technology

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/links_sci.html

Speaker Proposal

We will need around 30 sessions, some may be held twice during the day, but that’s a lot. We also need to be careful in picking speakers so we get the perfect mix of talks – inspiring and calling to action, instructive and hands-on. We will have to recruit a number of speakers ideally out of a larger group. So the idea is to ask potential speakers for proposals about their talk or hands-on session they want to give.

Below a try to come up with a form we could use for speakers session proposals:

Speaker name:

Location:

Company/affiliation:

web sites:

Other useful things to know:

Title of the session proposed:

Description of session:

Time frame for session (30-90 min?):

Ideal age:

Prerequisites to attend:

Space requirements (open floor, desks, computers, outside):

Other equipment needed (PCs, etc) and cost:

Is there someone else who can hold the session in case speaker is unable?

What are the projected expenses for the talk (travel required? transportation, lodging) – guesstimate items:

Have you held the session before? Are there descriptions/recordings?

Phone Meeting - October 16

Anne, Khalia, Martin

Topic areas: arts, games, science, robotics, life sciences, environments, social media, movies, music, security (Symantec), finance (Intuit)

3 slots for workshops. 30 seats per workshop. 10-15 workshops happening at one time. 30-45 workshops. Girls sign up ahead of time for workshop.

Lynn giving train the trainer session before.

We need a speaker signup questionnaire proposal TODO/M. (abstract, bio, travel, housing, time for ttt, …)

Put out an RFP for speakers?

Recording sessions? Legal implications.

Speakers from startup community?

Open source speakers?

What do we want? Teach programming.

Need to define speaker profile! TODO/M! Age, looks, mental state, --- ask daughters!

Sign-up website. Ask Elizabeth F. TODO/M! Define requ. Pick tracks, download legal papers.

Parent track: share what happened at Sacramento.

Have new web site: http://sites.google.com/site/dare2bdigitalconf/

Ruth back Monday. Anne back Nov 2.

Dawn – website? organize? volunteer recruiting? Mike M.

Expanding Your Horizons – Oct 10 – Trip Report

I took my daughter to this conference on the Sacramento state campus. We signed up online and paid $20 per person attending.
They had a parking structure reserved for the attendees right next to the student union where the conference was held in a large conference room. There was a checkin-area for the kids with 3 lines for name ranges, and another line for kids, one for mentors and a room for the volunteers. The kids received a little backpack filled with schwag and papers, the adults an ATT plastic bag with a notebook. You also got a conference badge in plastic on a string.

They had a lot of volunteers! Each attendee was assigned to a table. Each table had a volunteer. There were other volunteers for handing out food and just standing around and managing the crowds. The table group volunteers took their group through the conference sessions and lunch.

There was a short introduction by one of the organizers who is currently attending college there and then a keynote speech by a professor who is investigating healing various conditions using stem cells. She was talking about her career, how she got to lead the institute and showed short movies of her research and pictures from the new  institute they were building. Attendees asked some questions about stem cells and they were hard to hear because there were no microphones in the room. 

 

The parents had their own tables in the back of the room. We listened to the keynote and then went to one of the lecture rooms upstairs. I attended both lectures that were offered: an introduction on how to prepare for college (“start at birth”) that was very informative and one about gender bias and how to overcome  it when talking to your daughter. At the second lecture there was even a prize: a day-use ticket for a state park. The speakers were an admissions/outreach person and biology professors from the university there.
Lunch was a choice of three different wraps and water and iced tea. Quite simple. I heard no one complain.
Katarina had picked two sessions, one where you were experimenting with artificial blood – identifying blood groups and one where they were shown non-vegetarian plants. She said she liked another conference at the college of San Mateo better that she attended with her school. She said the difference was that they had more sessions.

 

The conference was sponsored by “women of AT&T”. I talked to one of the organizers, Dawn Fritz, also from AT&T who was of course interested in D2BD and even said they might sponsor us. I also talked to the main event organizer and left my card with her. They have done this event three times now and the level of organization is evident. There were few lines and always a  volunteer close by. I did not see anything that not handled perfectly.
At the end of the sessions the students were dropping off their evaluation sheets and received a raffle ticket. I did not see what the prizes were. At the ending session the same student that did the introductions asked students about their experiences.

I think the whole conference was a good experience. It was well organized and informative. I am considering going to the next one in San Francisco November 21.