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