Yesterday was my last day at IBM after 13.5 years. While it’s hard to believe I have spent my entire professional career in one company, the different roles and opportunities that have been afforded me make it seem like I’ve worked in at least 5 different places. Not to mention, I grew up while at […]
I was so busy tweeting and facebooking my excitement that my blog ended up sadly neglected on Friday when the fantastic news came out that Barbie’s Next Career is as a Computer Engineer! You better believe that I voted more than once so I consider myself responsible for Computer Engineer coming out on top! I […]
Got a super nice note from the organizer of yesterday’s event. Hi Jen, Thank you so much for your “my life” talk today. You were fantastic! I flipped through about half of the stack of evaluation surveys. For the question about “What things did you like most about the day”, I noticed three girls that […]
Today I am going to U of T campus to talk to the group of young women who are participating in the Gr8 Designs for Gr8 Girls workshop. Super exciting to tell them all about being a software developer (*not* programmer) and to help break down the gender stereotypes that exist around my profession. Should […]
Through my outreach activities I’ve learned about some really cool women and what they contributed to the field of science/engineering. There’s one that’s fun to talk about – Hedy Lamarr. The girls like hearing about her because not only did she create signal technology that’s used every day, but she was also a glamorous movie […]
Dear Rachael, I watch your show each morning while I run on the treadmill at the gym. Your upbeat personality is generally a cheerful way to start the day, and I enjoy getting recipe ideas for that night’s dinner. Monday was an exception. You gave your audience members an HD Tuner Stick with a cute […]
I am a girl. I like technology. It’s frustrating when companies think that all they need to do to make a product appealing to a woman is paint it pink. There’s way more to it than that. It’s nice to read about some companies that seem to finally be getting it. One of my favourite […]
Last week was EX.I.T.E. camp here at the Toronto Lab. I was one of the co-chairs. Camp got a lot of media coverage which was fun. It was also great to see how creatively they spelled the camp name. At least they got mine right (well, one called me jen). For the record, it’s EX.I.T.E. […]
I received two emails today pointing me to this article in the Toronto Star. This article, which discusses lonelygirl15* and her too-good-to-be-true-ness, has the headline: More proof there are no actual women online YouTube’s popular Lonelygirl15 turns out to be a fake, as filmmakers admit they’ve been producing online show Sound familiar? So come on […]
I’m totally psyched to be co-chairing a second CASCON workshop called “Women in Technology: New Strategies to Attract a New Generation of Girls.” From the online description: The recent dramatic decline of female enrolments in computer science and engineering education programs follows a time when female participation had peaked in the late 1990s. This leads […]