One of the requirements for receiving a Systers Pass-it-on (PIO) Award is a commitment to pass it on by assisting girls or women seeking their own places in technical fields. For Nkiru Celine Okoro and Barbara Ericson, passing it on was built into their PIO application projects. I checked in with them earlier this week. Both Celine and Barb are still passing it on to their systers, in ways that highlight global variations on the digital divide. And that makes them great subjects for this Ada Lovelace Day blog post.
Barb’s PIO project built on work that she and Georgia Tech students were already doing to introduce Girl Scouts to computing. Concerned that the workshops were not reaching many Hispanic girls, her project provided funding to assist them with transportation, participant fees, and meals so that they could participate. I asked Barb for an update on her work.
“Our Girl Scout workshops have grown quite a bit over the years. We started with just 2 4-hour workshops in 2005-2006, 4 4-hour workshops in 2006-2007, 10 in 2007-2008, 15 in 2008-2009, and 12 in 2009-2010. We were able to significantly grow these workshops when we received a National Science Foundation Broadening Participation in Computing grant in 2006.
Many of our 4-hour computing workshops fill completely and often have a long waiting list! We also help train counselors at Girl Scout camps to run computing workshops on LEGO NXT robots, PicoCrickets, and Scratch each summer. We do 1-hour introductory activities in the fall when Dad’s are camping with their daughters and when Mom’s are camping with their daughters.”
The 2007 PIO award brought Hispanic Girl Scouts to two 4 hour computing workshops at Georgia Tech. The first workshop had 30 girls (see photos!) and the second had 44 (more photos!). After they’d used up the award, the Girl Scouts paid to transport Hispanic Girl Scouts to at least one 4-hour workshop every year. And the number of girls who have been through at least one computing workshop with this program?
“That would be in the thousands (probably about 2,000). We have also been providing training and “seed” money to start other computing summer camps in Georgia and have started camps at 10 other colleges and universities since 2007. We train the other colleges and universities on the types of things we have tried with the Girl Scouts and in our summer camps.”
Celine’s PIO project was to help establish the ICT Development Center for Women and Girls in Lagos State, Nigeria. Her goal was strategic: not only to provide job skills as a path out of abject poverty, but also to provide the workforce needed for economic development in the region. At the time she applied for the award, the program had just begun and they had little to work with.
The impact is amazing … The support was tremendous because we had just started with minimal resources and the $500 USD grant was worth millions to us without which we would not have acquired the computers, printers and other things we now have.
So far they’ve trained about fifteen girls and ten women. Each training on basic computer literacy; applications including Microsoft Office and Corel Draw; and on use of the Internet takes about three months on average. For more than 90% of their graduates, this has been their first exposure to computer use.
“We charge a modest fee of $20 USD for each participant to cover running costs especially the purchase of diesel / gas for generators to power the computers. As you are aware, electricity supply is a very huge challenge in Nigeria.”
Don’t let the small scale of this operation fool you. It is unique in its region and the impact on the girls and women trained is tremendous. Celine and the Center are also involved in other gender empowerment and economic development initiatives in Nigeria including micro loans to women’s businesses. And Celine recently attended the 54th session of the UN Convention on the Status of Women.
After hearing Celine’s update, I took introduced her to another former PIO recipient in Nigeria, Oreoluwa Somolu, Executive Director of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC). But that’s a story for a future blog post!
Learn More:
- Ada Lovelace Day
- Georgia Tech Girl Scouts computing workshops
- Systers Pass-it-on (PIO) Award Program: Applications for Spring 2010 cycle close on May 12.
March 24th, 2010 at 2:43 am
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