November 6th 2017 
Million Women Mentors Summit & Awards Recap
STEMconnector CEO Leslie Cruz announced a new partnership with MENTOR which will exponentially increase our mentoring organization database while creating an effortless experience for new and existing members. Chief Business Development Officer Lorena Fimbres shared the release of the 100 Corporate Women Leaders in STEM publication, showcasing female leaders in STEM professions across the country and Chairman and Founder Edie Fraser announced the completion of the Women in Insurance white paper, illuminating areas of opportunity and highlighting existing progress for women in the insurance field. Million Women Mentors heard from national and state leaders including former United States Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and Ohio Governor Kim Reynolds on how to ensure that young women have strong STEM mentors, and dug into how Million Women Mentors create powerful mentor relationships on the ground through panels and breakout sessions. Closing the event, awards were presented to several leaders in this space for the work they are doing every day to empower women in STEM.

Women Who Code Announce Winners
Women Who Code  (WWCode), the world’s largest nonprofit organization working to support the success of women engineers, is proud to announce the winners of the 2017 #ApplaudHer Awards. This honor was bestowed upon women in 13 categories and was given in recognition of their contributions and accomplishments within the technology industry.
The winners were announced last night at the  Second Annual Women Who Code Awards  2017. Over 100 people were in attendance to celebrate the event and support Women Who Code in their work to inspire women to excel in technology careers. Sponsors for the ceremony included  Github ,  Samsung ,  Hired ,  Plex ,  Capital One ,  VMWare ,  Saint Archer Brewing ,  Hova Labs ,  Peroni , and Galvanize .

The winners of the awards were as follows:

  • Ignite Award: Vicki Cheung, Head of Infrastructure, OpenAI
  • Rise Award: Maria Kazandjieva, Engineering Manager, Netflix
  • Innovator Award: Kimberly Mach, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft 
  • Visionary Award: Martha Arellano, Cloud Platform Architect, VISUAL VOCAL
  • Open Source Award: Erin Spiceland, Engineer, NodeSource
  • Founder Award: Fatima Dicko, Founder & CEO, jetpack
  • Phoenix Award: Lori Hill, Software Engineer, NBC
  • Localization Award: Mimi Hills, Director, Product Globalization, VMware 
  • Senior Leadership Award:Ann Yeung, Sr. Director, Software Engineering, Capital One
  • VPE Award: Dory Weiss, VP of Engineering, nCino 
  • Director of Engineering Award: Selena Deckelmann, Director of Engineering, Firefox Runtime, Mozilla 
  • Engineering Lead Award: Laurence Girard, Engineering Lead API and DevOps, GIPHY
  • Thought leadership Award: Max Whitney, VP of Engineering, Max Amalgamated


Mentors Needed!
Our valued MWM partner, Mentored Pathways, is looking for additional mentors to help serve a number of students across the United States. Utilizing a vast network of middle and high school educators, Mentored Pathways provides the opportunity for mentors to match with students focused on specific projects to help boost their understanding and desire for the STEM path. You may find more information by going to their website - MentoredPathways.org
News From
MWM-MD
FIRST ANNUAL MARYLAND WOMEN IN STEM SUMMIT
MWM-MD is hosting its First Annual Maryland Women in STEM Summit on November 6, 2017, at the BGE Smart Energy Hall Conference Center in Baltimore.
Join leaders across Maryland to hear:
·      Why STEM skills are THE critical skills for the future
·      Why women with STEM skills are crucial for Maryland
·      Why mentorship matters
·      How MWM is addressing this nationally and across Maryland
·      The business impact from mentoring
·      The many benefits women receive from being mentored
Click here for more information, or register here .

FACEBOOK PAGE LAUNCH
MWM-MD just launched a Facebook page - Facebook.com/MWMMaryland as part of on-going work to build their marketing strategy. Follow their page to stay up to date on MWM-MD events, news, and great information on women and girls in STEM in Maryland. 
SOUTH AFRICA: This Finance Corporation Changed the Game for 3 Women Businesses
The advancement of women's skills is fast making strides in the economic landscape. This is evident by the Ithala Development Finance Corporation’s Business Awards which celebrated spectacular businesswomen. 
The Ithala Development Finance Corporation hosted the annual Imbokodo Iyazenzela Women in Business Awards. The awards was hosted at a gala dinner in Durban on October 25. 
Ithala's flagship program, Imbokodo Iyazenzela or “Women doing it for themselves”, hosted the top three women. These three women were among 145 entries received for the program.

INDIA: Zone Startups to Mentor More Women
The six-week accelerator programme was built based on a primary research conducted by Zone Startups India.
“Through our accelerator programme and various bootcamps, workshops and events, we noticed that the number of women-led or co-founded startups are significantly lesser than what could potential be. On conducting a study, we realised that the problems faced by a lot of women entrepreneurs are unique to them, and most of it is centered around the network aspect,” Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups India said.

AUSTRALIA: The Young Indigenous Women Set to be the Future of Corrective Services
Lowana Longbottom has never been comfortable with the fact that a quarter of inmates in Australia's prisons are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
For the 23-year-old Indigenous woman, it has been the driving force behind her goal to someday work in a NSW prison.
"I want [Australia] to see that we can have Aboriginal people on both sides ... working, and not just inmates."
Ms Longbottom is one of 25 Indigenous jobseekers to complete the Justice Aboriginal Pre-Employment pilot program at Campbelltown TAFE, a preliminary step towards becoming a correctional officer in NSW.
Of the 25 graduates, 21 were women.
"I think it's important to have Aboriginal culture in the jails because we've had a lot of black deaths in custody," Ms Longbottom said. "I feel something needs to be done, and I think for a lot of the women in the course, that was their reason as well.

Hidden No More: STEM Women of Color
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke will host “Hidden No More: STEM Women of Color,” a program celebrating diversity in the sciences on Saturday.
Attendees will hear from four women, who despite these challenges, have made significant contributions to their fields and are pushing society forward. They will discuss how others can help expand diversity in STEM education.
The program will feature Ann Vaughan Hammond and Peggy Vaughan ,who are the daughter and daughter-in-law of Dorothy Vaughan, the NASA mathematician portrayed by Octavia Spencer in the film “Hidden Figures.”
Dorothy Vaughan was head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ segregated West Area Computing Unit from 1949 to 1958. She was Langley Research Center’s first African American manager.
The program will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the University Center Annex. The event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided. To register, visit this link

STEM Education Resources: Free Computer Science Classes
Earlier this year, job search powerhouse Glassdoor released its   study of the 50 best jobs in America for 2017 . The majority of the list involves STEM-related fields (short for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), with a heavy emphasis on computer science at the top. Four out of the top five spots went to Data Scientist, DevOps Engineering, Data Engineer, and Analytics Manager. To further emphasize growth within the computer science field as some of the “best” jobs,  the Bureau of Labor Statistics  found that software developers for applications are set to see almost 20% job growth by 2024.
Here at The Simple Dollar, we pride ourselves on keeping our finger on the pulse of financial self-improvement. We also see a lot of opportunities for people to get a head start on success in computer science and other STEM pursuits. Whether you’re a student looking to lay the groundwork for college, a working professional pursuing a change in career, or an experienced coder looking for a better way to vet a potential candidate, there’s a computer science education site for you.

Girls-Only Competitions Build Confidence – and the Ranks of Women in Math
Earlier in the day, 266 of the brightest young minds in the country – the 16-year-old Californian among them – sat hunched over desks in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s largest classroom, silently scribbling numbers and formulas as test monitors strolled the aisles.
At first glance, it could have been just another math exam at MIT. But the Advantage Testing Foundation’s Math Prize for Girls contest, held in September, had some key distinctions: Participants competed not for grades, but for $31,000 in cash. None had yet graduated high school. And, as the competition’s name would suggest, all were girls.
During the contest itself, Megan, a second-time participant, had felt unusually relaxed. Later in the afternoon, as she was named one of three first-prize winners at the awards ceremony, that calm feeling quickly disappeared.  

Experimenting With Ending A Stereotype
Terre Haute - Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College is celebrating 10 years of helping middle school aged girls get a jump start in STEM education.
Every year they host the national, Expand Your Horizons campaign where girls come spend a day on campus doing different activities to help them learn more about science, technology, engineering, and math.
The expand your horizons campaign aims to change the stereotype of stem professions being "a man's job".
"When Analyse Payne did start this, she really wanted to encourage girls to attempt going into the science fields and the math fields because women can in fact do just as well if not better than any of the men in the field," said Maria Sellers, event co-coordinator.

Girls & STEM Aim to Inspire Next Generation of Female Leaders
The message Discovery World hopes to drive home with Girls & STEM event on November 11 is that any girl can thrive in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
The interactive event is designed to spark new interests, make real-life connections, and fight stereotypes and obstacles facing young girls and women in Milwaukee.  Girls & STEM hopes to inspire young women to see themselves as future STEM leaders by connecting brilliant female professionals with girls while inspiring creativity and curiosity through engaging hands-on STEM activities. The event will feature more than 35 organizations dedicated to cultivating confidence and empowering girls.

Girl Scouts Weigh in on New Eagle Scout Invitation
Last week, the Boy Scouts of America announced that girls can now pursue the coveted rank of Eagle Scout, the organization's highest honor. Michael Surbaugh, chief executive of the Boy Scouts, said via press release, "We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children.”
As Boy Scouts takes a step toward changing with the times, the Girls Scouts organization announced they “will remain girls-only,” said Amanda Duquette, vice president of marketing for Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas.

Tech-Loving Girls Get to Meet the 'Future Me'
Seventh grader Zoe Bundy knows what it's like to feel outnumbered. When she joined Tech Leaders at Discovery Middle School last year, she was the only girl in a class of 29. That ratio improved over the summer when the aspiring software engineer attended "Crack The Code: Summer Tech Camp for Girls" through uCodeGirl, a Fargo-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering young girls to build confidence and pursue careers in technology.
At the summer camp, Bundy worked on robotics, web and app design.
"What did I like about uCodeGirl summer session? Everything!" she says. "I was very happy to find a coding camp and realize I wasn't the only girl who liked it."

Great Sentences in JSTOR: Female Inventive Talent
Science writing isn’t exactly known for being the most, ah, beautifully written prose in the English language. But dive into an 1870s issue of  Scientific American ,  and the situation changes somewhat. Just read the first few lines of this unsigned editorial from the September 17th issue:
The question of what women can do and what they cannot do well, is one which has been much debated of late, and it is safe to say that facts and arguments laid before the public in the course of the discussion have done much to shake the belief, once so universal, that women are adapted to do nothing well but the domestic duties of the household.

SHE Leads: Women in STEM Leadership Event for High School Girls
S.H.E. Leads is around the corner on November 2nd! Register today to secure your High School daughter and join Junior Achievement in inspiring the next generation of female STEM leaders. For more information, please visit  http://ow.ly/3fCk30fZR9Q.
JA S.H.E. Leads connects businesswomen and outstanding female high school students in Silicon Valley to celebrate success, develop workforce readiness, capture new opportunities and inspire the next generation of female leaders to pursue a career path in STEM. 

Celebrating Women in Computing
Internet2 announced six recipients of the  Inclusivity Initiative Scholarship  ahead of its annual technical meeting, the  Internet2 Technology Exchange , taking place next week in San Francisco from October 15-18. The scholarship recognizes talented individuals seeking opportunities to gain hands-on technical experience, and spotlights women in the field of information technology and their efforts to use technology to serve research and education at their individual institutions.

Let’s Do Brinner (and Support Science at the Same Time)
It's been a new year for Keystone Science School, and with a relatively new marketing and development coordinator, a couple new supportive friends and a handful of new events, the school is putting on its first-ever breakfast-for-dinner fundraiser next week in Dillon.
Let's Do Brinner will be from 5:30-8:30 p.m., Oct. 26, at the Sunshine Café. People may RSVP anytime before Oct. 25, but with 65 available seats and about 30 tickets remaining, space is limited. The brand new event will feature a four-course meal prepared by a chef. It starts with a breakfast bruschetta before moving on to a seasonal salad, filling up on a bacon-chili crusted pork belly and ending with a breakfast pastry filled with honey and vanilla yogurt cream and drizzled with a strawberry caviar glaze.

Strong Women, Strong Girls Club Gets Second in National Contest
Former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, once said, “There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” A club at Duquesne is following her words by helping girls in need.
Duquesne University’s branch of Strong Women, Strong Girls received a $13,500 grant for winning second place in the “Students with Drive” program run by Zipcar and Ford Motor Company. Along with the money, they also received scholarship money and Zipcar driving credit.
Strong Women, Strong Girls is a support organization dedicated to empowering young, troubled girls. To do this, the organization sets the girls up with college women who serve as mentors to guide the girls through their troubles.

Verónica Montes - Immigration in America and Women's Role
Verónica Montes started from scratch. The daughter of a divorced immigrant mother who, working as a seamstress, brought her four children to America in search of a better life, Verónica’s personal stamina led her to become an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, and later, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at  Bryn Mawr College .
Verónica understood that success in the U.S. required cultural integration, nevertheless she found it hard. There is a saying in Spanish “ni de aqui ni de alla,” meaning “neither here nor there,” which is commonly applied to Mexicans living in the United States.

Engineering Equality
A Cummins Inc. employee who has helped promote engineering as a profession for women and young girls will be honored for her efforts later this month.
Karen Ramsey-Idem, director of Global Technical Operations and Resource Strategy for the Components Business, will receive the Global Leadership Award from the Society of Women Engineers for her impact on the organization and the engineering community at an Oct. 27 banquet in Austin, Texas.
She will celebrate her 20th year working at Cummins in December.
Ramsey-Idem, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering, said she was honored and surprised to learn she will receive the award.

PROMOTE Pushes for Diversity Through Special Operations Mentorship
Lyla Kohistany spent six years as a Navy officer, but when she looks at today’s U.S. military, she doesn’t see herself.
That’s because, as the nation and the military as a whole grows more diverse, she said the upper levels of the U.S. military are lagging behind.
“Our military is not keeping up,” she said. “Don’t we want a military that is reflective of the U.S. population?”
But Kohistany isn’t sitting back and waiting for things to change. She and others with similar goals are stepping up and working to make the military more diverse, starting with the special operations community.
The president and co-founder of PROMOTE – a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing awareness of the benefits of gender diversity in the military and providing mentorship and leadership development programs – hosted more than 70 soldiers at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in downtown Fayetteville.

The Problem With the “Pipeline”
Different groups talk about variations of  the pipeline . Some describe  a pipeline from science education to a STEM career , or as a way to describe a  treacherous path through such an education  that loses many female, black, Latino, or American Indian people along their educational careers. But the variations are all based on an idea that impacts entire sectors of our 21st-century economy:  the preschool-to-Ph.D. pipeline.
Imagine, if you will, a toddler at the top of a tube slide that begins with early education and ends with earning a STEM—science, technology, engineering, or math—Ph.D., eventually becoming the chair of a university physics department or a researcher at a national lab. This pipeline is eroded away by social and cultural forces that keep talented individuals from “making it.” People tend to “leak out” at the bachelor’s or master’s degree levels as they leave school to go find a job or change their career paths altogether.

Ex-Astronaut, BSU Educator Says Exposing Females to STEM is Essential to Our Future
Boise State University has been building its science, technolog y, engineering and math programs to become a university known for its STEM education. They have several programs, such as E-Girls, pictured, that support young girls and women entering into STEM fields. 
Years ago, long before I was exploring space with NASA, I was like countless other women searching for an outlet for my love of science and mathematics. The possibilities, we generally were told, were being a teacher, a nurse, or a dental hygienist. I became a teacher, a job I loved and career choice that eventually led me all the way to the International Space Station. Needless to say, my perspective on career opportunities for women inclined toward the science, technology, engineering and math-fields has changed considerably over the past 50 years.

Facebook VP: “Diversity Is Essential To Fostering Innovation”
Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. have been pushing for more women in the workforce in recent years. Neglecting 50% of the population is bad business, but there may be other reasons to push for diversity in the office, according to Facebook’s Vice President of Global Marketing Solutions  Carolyn Everson .
“From our perspective, we need to have a workforce that reflects all of the people that we serve, so [diversity] is incredibly important for us,” Everson tells Forbes Middle East, on the sidelines of the Global Women In Leadership Forum on October 25 in Dubai. “Diversity is essential to fostering innovation.”
She believes the relationship between innovation in technology and women in business goes both ways. “There is nothing more important for fostering innovation than having a diverse set of employees,” she says. “Also, technology is a huge enabler of women to be in business.”

Lego Is Finally Celebrating the Women of NASA With Their Very Own Set
Some of NASA’s most influential women have finally been immortalized in an iconic toy set.
Tuesday, Lego announced that it would start selling its “Women of NASA” collection on Oct. 28 in New York and Nov. 1 globally. The set includes 231 pieces, which can be used to build models of the Hubble space telescope and a space shuttle, as well as Lego versions of Sally Ride, Nancy Grace Roman, Margaret Hamilton, and Mae Jemison.

Tech Tours!

For the last 4 months they've been on the road talking to locals and influencers about the future of work in their cities. They're getting ready for their San Francisco tour and would love to see you there!

Top 3 Reasons YOU should come to our tour stop!
 
  1. FIND A JOB. 20+ growing startups are recruiting and are looking for great talent like you.
  2. Mentoring With Megan. Need we say more?
  3. Hear incredible speakers!
Next Tour Locations!
In a recent Gallup study, only 11 percent of corporate executives perceived that college graduates had the skills they were looking for. How can we better prepare the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow? 
In her new book, Teach to Work: How a Mentor, a Mentee and a Project Can Close the Skills Gap in America (Taylor and Francis: March 28, 2017) mentoring expert Patty empowers professionals – whether they are bankers, lawyers, architects, accountants, engineers, IT specialists or artists – to bring their real-world experience and her project based mentoring model into the classroom. 
Compelling and insightful, the book reveals how professionals can embark on a journey to transform lives, mentoring one student at a time. 
“You have made a difference in the lives of these kids, and most likely you have made a difference in the lives of their kids as well. They have grabbed hold of your light, because they feel your encouragement and kindness, and maybe because they had no other. Thank you for your important leadership in this role.” 
— Chris Gardener, Author of The Pursuit of Happyness, 2010 NFTE Dare to Dream speech 
For more information visit  www.teachtowork.com
 
Women’s Quick Facts brings to life insightful data on the impact of women that everyone should know. From purchasing power, to how efficient women owned companies are with respect to capital compared to men, this book takes the pulse on women in today’s modern economy. Not only does each page compile a broad spectrum of the most current data, it also brings the numbers to life in bite size, easy to read content.

Million Women Mentors | STEMconnector | 202-304-1964 | [email protected] | www.MillionWomenMentors.org