Changing the Way You See Tech

[Music]

i consider myself a bit of an introvert

but

ever since starting college i love

meeting new people

and it’s because the conversation always

goes something like this

we introduce ourselves share our names

maybe where we’re from

and then my favorite question to answer

literally ever gets asked

and they go what’s your major i get

really excited inside because i’m so

proud of myself

and i say computer science and

the reaction is always somewhere along

the lines of complete shock or

utter confusion and i get it

i walk around everywhere i go in

ridiculous platform heels or black

leather

pants and everyone kind of expects

computer science majors to look like

mark zuckerberg and

i’m not sure if i could be more of the

complete and polar opposite of that

so i understand i though had the

privilege to

learn about computer science and

engineering in a pretty

female-centered bubble that bubble was

actually so bad that the first time i

went to the worldwide

developers conference which is where

apple hosts its keynote every year

i was pulled into this side room to have

a conversation with

some man and i had no idea who it was

but

i pride myself on being able to have a

conversation with literally anyone so

i’m talking to this guy about apple

technology

swift apple’s developing language and

the importance of teaching young women

to code meanwhile

i have no clue who i’m talking to only

upon

leaving the room to a rush of tech bros

screaming

oh my god that’s tim cook as i would

have had it been harry styles

did i realize i was talking to the ceo

of apple

it was a little embarrassing but goes to

show how female centered my

tech bubble was my interest in

engineering

started in fifth grade when i joined a

summer pre-college program

that was all girls that year the

curriculum was centered around

aeronautical engineering and other stem

subjects so

science technology engineering and math

i was probably the only 11 year old in

existence that was

over the moon at spending her summer

learning about aeronautical engineering

but i was really excited and i kept

going back

every summer to learn about different

engineering disciplines with the

loveliest group of girls i met there

and those girls were so cool most of us

were black and or latina and we were

amazing slicing cow hearts

for biomedical engineering teaching

ourselves pre-calc and discrete math

before even starting high school

building rockets and all of the most

amazing

stem stuff you only see on the tv

so through deductive reasoning obviously

i just assumed that white guys in stem

didn’t exist

none of the students really fit this

category and i didn’t have

any professors that looked like them

either

i thought us women of color really own

this

until that bubble was bursted when i

started high school

in high school i started computer

science on the ap level because

i skipped a year in math so i leveled

out of all the prerequisites pretty

quickly

i guess that edge gave me the

reassurance that i needed

but my insecurity in computer science

came from

a place that i never expected it was the

first time

i was one of the only women women of

color especially

in a technology course i was taking most

of the students

were white guys which was a full 180

from

the summer pre-college course i took on

top of that

i walked in the room on the first day in

5-inch gold embroidered booties

in a room where khaki pants and a polo

top was about as high fashion as things

got

our class also created a culture around

computer science that i grew to dislike

women were rarely ever highlighted

especially black

and brown women and all of our

conversations about innovations were

discussed in the context

of valuing profit and exploitation

a world where writing code to make money

was deemed more valuable than writing

code to help people

i became less and less seduced with

becoming the next bill gates

or mark zuckerberg and really started to

question whether computer science would

be the best fit for me

i became really insecure that i would

never be masculine enough

or white enough to have a successful

entrepreneurial career in stem

i started to ask myself a lot of

questions

would i always feel like an outcast here

was i doing more self-harm than good by

continuing to force myself into a space

where i’d likely always be the only

black and or latina woman in the room

would my passion for computer science

continue to taper off

with the hyper fixation on profit in

stem education

would it be feasible and absolutely

necessary

for me to build cher’s closet app from

the movie clueless

yes the answer is yes and that’s the

thing

is whenever i felt distanced or

disconnected from the world of computer

science

my personal passions always brought me

right back

because being a young black latina woman

has always given me a large canon of

coding ideas

i just needed a safe space to build them

so eventually i stopped looking for my

niche in computer science at high school

and really started to lean into

extracurricular programs to fill that

void

a place where i could embrace my black

and brownness because

who i am is an asset to my programming

not a disadvantage

i found my true home in computer science

at code with klossy

a coding program for young girls to

navigate the world of programming

free of restraints and societal

constructs

it’s where i learned that being a black

woman in technology

is impressive and that the

representation that i bring to the table

is not only valuable but absolutely

necessary it’s where i learned that it’s

more than okay to code something

just because it’s for the good of

society something that the world needs

it was actually encouraged it’s where i

could walk in

with the brightest red lip and sharpest

winged eyeliner

and feel at home chugging through signal

abort after signal abort

which is the most annoying xcode error

ever

after feeling so invisible for so long

code with klossy made me feel seen more

than seen

code with klossy made me feel like a

star and my experience at camp taught me

a few things

the first thing that i learned was to

never shy away from my identity

because who i am makes it into

everything i code in a very special way

then i realized that my fulfillment in

computer science

came from writing code to help people

not to create a product and that’s okay

the last thing i noticed was no matter

how hard

a problem may seem to be i am more than

creative and intelligent enough to

generate some sort of solution

so fast forward to the week of may 25th

2020 and i’m sitting on my couch staring

at my tv

with what felt like the entire country

the death of george floyd

seemed to mute the world around me i was

lost in a sea of helplessness

because what had happened felt so far

away yet so

deeply personal but before i could even

feel like there was nothing i could do

i remembered everything code with klossy

had taught me

goodness action identity i almost

immediately dived into my computer

i coded a website called pb resources a

resource and education tool

in honor of all those who have lost

their lives at the hands of white

supremacy

and police brutality i spent hours upon

hours scouring the internet for

petitions bail funds

places to donate explanations for our

complex conversations around race

and anything else i could find on the

topic

in the end i created an encyclopedia of

tools to aid in the fight against racial

injustice

and since its release over 500 000

people have used it

i created a tool that represented my

blackness

my femininity and my passion for

equitable access

it was one of the first times i realized

that i didn’t have to lose any of those

things to be a successful programmer

that’s what i think the true power of

computer science is

it’s not ai and boston dynamics

or data mining in facebook it’s about

writing code to help people

communities societal situations

even if it’s free especially if it’s

free

that’s what the true power of coding is

it’s writing code

to help communities at no cost because

it’s the right thing to do

and i think that could be the standard

if the industry just took one second to

listen

thank you

you