2016 Zimbabwe

Thanks to fellow TechWomen Mentor, Anar Simpson, for sending this picture just now of some of us in the 2016 delegation to Zimbabwe, at the Meikles Hotel in Harare. What an inspiring trip that was!

TechWomen Team Sierra Leone

Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone) in Freetown, 2017

I am honored to be one of the 2020 TechWomen Impact Coaches for Sierra Leone, working again with fellow Mentor, Mercedes Soria. We mentors just finished our second online training meeting with IIE. I have visited Sierra Leone twice, once in 2017 with Families Without Borders and then again in 2019 as part of the TechWomen Delegation, for which I gave the Networking Keynote address. I am happy to be working with Salwa Campbell as our Sierra Leone Peer Advisor for the five Emerging Leaders from Salone.

I was the Process Architect for TechWomen 2010-2011 and have been a TechWomen mentor and part of eleven international delegations since 2011. TechWomen is an exchange program of the US Department of State – Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This life changing program is very dear to me and I am looking forward to helping the 2020 Team Sierra Leone develop a project that will help their community.

Tools I mentioned on today’s training call, for teams working at a distance: Google Groups – email distribution and archive, WhatsApp – quick messages and meeting reminders, Facebook – personal updates and contacts, LinkedIn – professional updates and contacts, Skype or Zoom – to communicate verbally, Google Drive – to share and communicate in writing. Send a WhatsApp message to the whole team 2 hours in advance of a team meeting so they don’t have to remember US time zones, Daylight Savings, etc. Mentors have to keep up with country events by reading BBC News, Al Jazeera, New York Times. 

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home). Images Copyright 2017-2019 by Katy Dickinson.

Christmas 2019

May this blessed Christmas season bring you and your family joy! It has been a busy Christmas, starting even before I turned in my last (16 and 18 page) term papers at the Graduate Theological Union. So far, our adventures have included:

• Reading Charles Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas” aloud with my Shakespeare Reading Group
• Hosting the Silicon Valley Lines and John‘s train club lunch group’s annual holiday party
• Dinner with my Education for Ministry class, after the Bethlehem pageant at Santa Clara First Baptist Church
• Lunch with the Interfaith Speakers of the Islamic Networks Group
• Shopping in Chinatown, San Francisco, with Sally Hambridge and Paul
• Receiving my certificate of appreciation from the US State Department for being a TechWomen 2019 mentor for Team Algeria (my 10th year as a citizen diplomat with TechWomen!)
• Dickens Christmas Fair day of music, high tea, and shopping with Jessica and Paul (including buying an amazing Christmas candle)
• Seeing the new Star Wars movie with John, Matthew, Jessica, and Paul
• Cheering on Paul for finishing the many Christmas orders for his reclaimed hardwood cutting boards
• Sitting with John and his teen video crew recording the Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
• Bringing services to two Elmwood jail dorms with John on Christmas Day (on behalf of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy)
• Enjoying family, food, and gifts with John, Jessica, Matthew, and Paul at home on Christmas Day!

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Images Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson.

TechWomen Team Algeria

I am happy and honored to be a TechWomen Impact Coach for 2019 Team Algeria. TechWomen is a program of the US Department of State that brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program. I was the 2010-2011 Process Architect for TechWomen and am so very proud of this program!

Four capable and inspiring TechWomen Emerging Leaders, Celia Ouabas, Imane Chekirine, Imene Henni Mansour, and Sara Dib of Algeria, are working with my Co-Mentors Mercedes Soria, Fatema Kothari, and me to develop an educational improvement program for them to take home next month. The seven of us are meeting several times a week in workshops and social events to develop the plans and the Pitch Night presentation for Team Algeria.

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Images Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson, and Saul Bromberger.

Solve24 from TechWomen of Lebanon

I am very proud of three of my TechWomen mentees from Lebanon who just launched the Solve24 – a new technical camp for teens in Beirut.  Our 2017 TechWomen Fellows from Lebanon (Lara Chikhani, Maya Itani, and Rasha Sukkarieh) have been working hard – with some advice from their three experienced mentors from the Silicon Valley (Mercedes Soria, Fatema Kothari, and me) for many months to create this new program – while working at regular jobs, of course.

About Solve24:

A project-based program, designed to train students aged 13 – 17 to think outside the box while inquiring about and solving real-life challenges. The program allows them to explore design thinking processes and STEAM tools to find ways for creating usable and innovative products and finding solutions for real-life problems, in 24 hours, spread over 2 weeks. Throughout this camp, students will attend workshops and engage in specific activities that will guide and shape their way of thinking and provide them with the needed strategies for solving problems in an innovative way. First Session: 30 July – 9 August 2018

Lara, Maya, and Rasha are inspiring and remarkable and creative leaders!

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Images Copyright 2017-2018 by Katy Dickinson and TechWomen.

Thanks, TechWomen!

Thanks to the TechWomen program for the recent Tweet quoting me:

Behind every successful woman is a tribe of women supporting her, like TechWomen

It is my honor to have helped design TechWomen – and to have been a TechWomen mentor and enthusiastic supporter since the program started:

TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program. TechWomen provides participants access to networks, resources, and knowledge to empower them to reach their full potential.

During the five-week program, participants engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, participate in professional development workshops and networking events, and travel to Washington, DC. for targeted meetings and special events to conclude the program.

Over the past seven years, more than 500 women from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe have participated in TechWomen.

TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). TechWomen, launched in 2011, supports the United States’ global commitment toward advancing the rights and participation of women and girls around the world by enabling them to reach their full potential in the tech industry.

TechWomen is managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE).
More: https://www.techwomen.org/

More about my company, Mentoring Standard: http://www.mentoringstandard.com/

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Coolest Office in San Jose

Thanks to San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (and Ahmad Chapman, his Communications Specialist) who created the “Great 408”  community celebration program for San Jose, which says about “77. Backyard Railroad Caboose” –

You can have your glass-walled high rises and ergonomic standing desks; Katy Dickinson has the coolest office in San Jose. That’s because it’s a 1916 Western Pacific steel framed wooden caboose in the backyard of the Willow Glen home she shares with her husband, John Plocher. The couple purchased the caboose in 2006 from the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in San Francisco after it lost its lease. It was in storage in San Jose for more than a year until it was moved to their backyard in May 2007. The couple has been restoring the caboose bit by bit for more than a decade. Be sure to check out Katy and John’s website for more photos and the history of the caboose.

The web page features the 2007 video by Sam Fineberg of WP668 moving into our backyard. WP668 is the office for my company, Mentoring Standard.

Page updated 27 March 2020 – added images and links.

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Photos Copyright 2008-2017 by Katy Dickinson.