Tag Archives: diversity

Toys, Books, and Kits Attract Girls to Engineering

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The small number of women role models in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers is widely recognized.

Debbie Sterling

Debbie Sterling

Debbie Sterling, a Stanford-educated engineer, is among a group of educators and entrepreneurs developing toys, books, games, and kits to attract girls to technical careers.

She introduced books and construction toys for girls centered on a fictional role model, Goldie, in response to her experience of collaborating mostly with men during her studies of product design in Stanford’s mechanical engineering department.

The first book, intended for girls, ages 5 to 9, is called GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine. Goldie lives in “her engineering house with gears and moving parts everywhere,” five character figurines (including Nacho the dog and Benjamin Cranklin the cranky cat), and a construction toy, featuring a pegboard, wheels, axles, blocks, a crank, a ribbon, and washers.

Goldie creates a “spinning machine” for her dog, who enjoys chasing his tail and yelling out random words in Spanish, by deconstructing a ballerina music box and reverse engineering it. Girls can create their own spinning toys with as they read through the story.

Her next products include books with a pulley system elevator, a parade float, circuits and gears, and an eBook where Goldie learns to code.

Another product intended to increase girls’ skill and confidence in working with technology is Hummingbird, an educational robotics kit.
Developed at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute’s Arts and Bots program, spin-off startup BirdBrain Technologies, showcases robotics with craft materials and text to communicate thoughts, feelings, or ideas.

The kit includes a control board, lights, sensors, and motors.
Students (usually ages 11 and up) program their creations on a computer by dragging and dropping icons, so they don’t have to learn computer languages.

Students have experimented with making a robot from cardboard wrapped in tin foil that can twirl, flash lights, and even impersonate the Star Wars robot, R2D2.
Another project was a dragon made of paper and popsicle sticks that flaps its wings and hisses.
Others crafted a robotic arm with muscles made of cast-off pantyhose.

Pennsylvania students analyzed poetry, then created animated scenes for poems using the kit.
Elsewhere high school students created kinetic sculptures with sensors that detect environmental changes and respond with movement.
Others built a “coin monster” for the school’s ancient coin exhibit.

Emily Hamner

Emily Hamner

Research Associate Emily Hamner and Tom Lauwers, the founder of BirdBrain Technologies conducted workshops to learn girls’ goals and interests in making robots.
They learned that girls are most interested in creating robots that can tell stories, dance, communicate, and interact with people.

Hamner and Lauwers’ goal is to enable young people “to create whatever they can imagine,” to inspire students’ interest in STEM careers, and to increase their “understanding and confidence in using the technology.”

-*What toys and games have you seen increase young people’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics activities?

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Blog: – Kathryn Welds | Curated Research and Commentary

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Silicon Valley Tech Women Encourage STEM Careers

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Mala Devlin

Mala Devlin

Mala Devlin, Engineering Manager at Cisco Systems and Trina Alexson‘s book, Bit by Bit encourages young women in high school and university to pursue high tech careers.

Trina Alexson

Trina Alexson

Devlin and Alexson interviewed more than 40 women across leading Silicon Valley companies to highlight the top 10 reasons why young women should consider careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers, despite women’s under-representation in these fields.

The authors provide descriptions of job roles and career paths, and list skills required to succeed in technology careers.

Insights from this book are equally applicable to young men, and the authors encourage members of all under-represented groups to consider STEM careers.

Devlin and Alexson donated all profits from the book to the Anita Borg Society for Women in Technology

-*What practices have you seen increase interest in STEM careers among young women and other under-represented groups?

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“Zooming” to Shift Strategic Thinking Perspective

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Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School suggests the electronic metaphor of “zooming in” and “zooming out”, to characterize a critical practice of changing points of view in strategic thinking.

She says that “zooming” represents the flexible shift from detail to context to better consider other routes to the ultimate goals.

Kanter observed the traditional association of women with the “zoom in” perspective to focus on detail and transactions (such as CFO roles), whereas men are often found in “big-picture” roles that define vision and direction (such as CEOs).

She argues for systematically incorporating both “zooming in” and “zooming out” in strategic problem analysis, and for recognizing potential biases that may exclude men from roles that focus on “zooming in” and women from roles that emphasize “zooming out.”

-*What practices do you use to intentionally shift your perspective from “big picture” to implementation details?

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Female and Minority Supervisor Influence

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Katherine L. Milkman

Wharton operations and information management professor Katherine L. Milkman and Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, investigated how race and gender affect career mobility for young professionals, especially those entering career fields where they must be promoted to remain (law firms, universities, consulting firms).

Kathleen L. McGinn

They examined five years of personnel data and employee interviews from a large national law firm and found a correlation between the number of female supervisors and the probability of promotion and retention of junior-level female employees, published in Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge as “Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals.”

The enabling benefit of demographically similar employees and supervisors was accompanied by a perhaps surprising correlation.
Work groups with a high number of same-gender or same-race underrepresented minorities had a higher attrition rate, attributed to employees’ perception that the competition reduced their chances for promotion.

Milkman and McGinn noted that placing many underrepresented employees (women and underrepresented minorities) in the same group may lead to structural marginalization, or “ghettoes” of low-power.
This effect was present in groups composed mostly of men.
In contrast, the exit decisions of white and Asian employees did not seem affected by working in groups with other white and Asian employees.

The researchers cited the massively unequal representation of women and minorities among partners in professional services organizations.
A 2009 study that showed women made up 46% of associates but 19% of partners across U.S. law firms, and racial minorities represented 20% of the lawyers across the country but only 6% of partners.

Milkman is currently analyzing data on the role that race and gender play in sponsorship or patronage in academia.
She sent emails to 6,500 professors at academic institutions across the country from purported male, female, white, or minority “students”  requesting a 10-minute meeting for one-time mentoring, either that day or next week.

She found that “female” and “minority” students received significantly fewer responses from prospective mentors, particularly when asked for assistance in the future.
She noted that these findings contrast with the popular expectation of less overt or unconscious discrimination in academic settings.

-*How have you seem race and gender affect career mobility in the past year?

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Large-Cap Companies with Women Board Members Outperformed Peers

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Credit Suisse Research Institute analyzed the performance of close to 2,400 companies with and without women board members from 2005 onward, and evaluated four key financial metrics:

1. Higher return on equity (ROE): The average ROE of companies with at least one woman on the board over the past six years is 16 percent; four percentage points higher than the average ROE of companies with no female board representation (12 percent).

2. Lower net debt to equity ratio: Net debt to equity of companies with no women on the board averaged 50 percent over the past six years; those with one or more have a marginally lower average, at 48 percent.

3. Higher price/book value (P/BV) multiples: In line with higher average ROEs, aggregate P/BV for companies with women on the board (2.4x) is on average a third higher than the ratio for those with no women on the board (1.8x).

4. Better average growth: Net income growth for companies with women on the board averaged 14 percent over the past six years compared to 10 percent for those with no female board representation.

The report offered seven hypotheses to explain the performance findings, including:

Improved Corporate Governance: Academic research reveals that a greater number of women on the board improves performance on corporate and social governance metrics.

Risk Aversion: The study analyzed the MSCI AC World constituents and found that stocks of companies with women on the board are more likely to have lower levels of gearing than their peer group where there are no women on the board.

Lower relative debt levels have been a useful determinant of equity market out-performance, delivering average out-performance of 2.5 percent per year over the last 20 years and 6.5 percent per year over the last four years.

Gender Diversity and Corporate Performance report

-*What financial results have you observed among large organizations with women board members?

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How Parents can Limit Girls’ Leadership and Achievement Potential

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Forbes Woman observed that seven parenting and teaching practices may still persist, and have been shown to limit girls’ potential for achievement in school and sports.

These practices can lay the foundation for unchallenged assumptions that may continue to limit their potential to advance in workplace leadership roles.

1. Teach her to be polite and quiet without skills to be proactive and assertive

2. Buy her gender-specific toys

3. Focus on her appearance more than her accomplishments

4. Give in to the allure of the ”princess cult”

5. Assign her father or male caretaker all the physical tasks around the house

6. Limit most of her social contract to other girls

7. Criticize your own body, and/or women’s bodies

-*How do you help girls develop leadership and achievement skills they will need in the next decade and beyond?

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White Men can Lead in Improving Workplace Culture

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Catalyst’s recent research study of employees at Rockwell Automation, Calling All White Men: Can Training Help Create Inclusive Workplaces?, found that white men who participate in leadership development training, modify their workplace attitudes and behavior to enable career advancement for women and minorities.
The study found that Rockwell employees who participated in leadership training labs presented by White Men as Full Diversity Partners:

• Reported increased in workplace civility and decreased gossip, attributable in part to improved communication and respect

• Managers were more likely to acknowledge that inequities exist in career advancement opportunities and practices for women and racial/ethnic minorities

• Managers increased five inclusion behaviors, including seeking out varied perspectives to becoming more direct in addressing emotionally charged matters

• Managers with few prior cross-racial relationships reported most change in thinking about issues and opportunities for different demographic groups

• Managers who reported least concern about appearing prejudiced reported most change in taking personal responsibility for being inclusive following the leadership training lab.

As in any civil rights transition, change adoption is increased when representative of the often privileges “majority” articulate the issue and present a call-to-action for change.

-*How have you seen men improve the culture in your workplace?

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