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!

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).
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.

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

Best Mentoring Practices

Yesterday, I moderated a mentoring panel for the TechWomen Mentor Kickoff event (hosted by SurveyMonkey in San Francisco). The experienced and inspiring panelists were:

• Mentorship Advice: Katy Dickinson, Mentoring Standard
• Professional Mentor: Roojuta Lalani, Salesforce
• Impact Coach: Kiko Smith, Twitter
• Cultural Mentor: Jennifer Gieber, Glassdoor

Some of our advice:

• Katy: Look for long term success, this is a personal relationship in a professional setting
• Roojuta: Be flexible, make introductions, find people to help
• Jennifer: Create handouts for events, give good directions with pictures, be flexible, reach out to other mentors
• Kiko: Provide resources, help the group find value in each other, encourage teamwork, stay focused, show up and listen

I also offered my five best questions:

1. What problem are you solving? (define the challenge)
2. How do you know when you are done? (success/completion metrics)
3. Who is your customer? (target audience)
4. What is your data? (quantification)
5. What difference will it make? (impact)

These are on my Mentoring Standard website

I was proud to attend this event with my Co-Mentor and daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman. She is a Country Coach for Palestine and I am a Country Coach for Algeria this year.

Just for fun – some of my collection of magnets from the 22 TechWomen countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia:

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).
Images Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson – with thanks to Jessica Dickinson Goodman.

Arts and Crafts in Sierra Leone

In addition to meeting new people and mentoring, style, fashion, and exploring local markets have been some of my great joys during many trips to Africa. The recent TechWomen Delegation to Sierra Leone was no exception. This is an update on my 2017 blog post Fabric Arts and Crafts in Sierra Leone. Having shopped in Sierra Leone before, my daughter Jessica and I arrived with clear ideas on what we wanted to bring home this time.

An unexpected delight was that TechWomen Fellow, Engineer, and fashion entrepreneur Michelle Sesay (of House of Cordelia in Freetown) generously offered to have clothes made to order for the TechWomen mentors. She brought fabric and some made-up samples, took our measures and design ideas, and delivered wonders. Her tailor is amazing! Jessica and I and most of the TechWomen wore our new outfits to the final dinner.

In addition, Jessica and I brought home bolts of fabric, batik, and wood carvings as presents and to decorate our homes. After experiencing the design and color flair in West Africa, the San Francisco Bay Area is visually boring.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).
Images Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson –  with thanks to TechWomen for the group photo!

TechWomen Delegation to Sierra Leone

I recently returned from the TechWomen Delegation to Sierra Leone and am still catching up with all of my work and homework. I was happy to be able to travel with my daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, who was also a Delegation Member and who posted excellent daily blogs during the trip. We met with hundreds of girls and boys, entrepreneurs and leaders, schools and organizations, and came home inspired by the energetic and welcoming people of Sierra Leone.

Jessica and I had a long layover in London, so we were able to see an excellent all-female cast of Richard II at the Globe Theater. Once our flight arrived in Sierra Leone, we took the boat between Lungi and Freetown. The next day, we started visiting initiatives around Freetown developed by the creative and dedicated TechWomen Fellows of Sierra Leone, and participating in other events, including

• The Services Secondary School, Juba
• Reception by US Ambassador Maria E. Brewer
• STEM Career Day with secondary students at British Council, Tower Hill
• Fourah Bay College STEM students
• Women’s Leadership Forum at Radisson Blu Hotel
• Connecting the Future networking event and reception at Sierra Lighthouse
• Women in #Techpreneurship at Family Kingdom Resort
• Pitch Night and Startup Exhibition at Toma Boutique Hotel
• Reduce-Reuse-Recycle at Saint Edward’s Primary School
• Hands-on STEM Experience with Students at Buxton Memorial Methodist Church

I gave a keynote on Networking, and Jessica gave a talk on Finding Funding, and we joined all of the Delegation members to help present workshops and activities. Of course, Jessica and I passed out our Notable Women in Computing cards and posters. After the delegation ended, many of us took a bus to visit Families Without Borders in Makeni. Even after a 42 hour trip home, it was a remarkable and fulfilling experience.

Updated 23 March 2019

Photos Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson – Thanks to TechWomen for the Pitch Night photo!
If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

TechWomen Team Morocco – Connect to Impact

I have been proud to team up with Mercedes Soria and Fatema Kothari for a third year as TechWomen impact coaches, to work with five remarkable leaders from Morocco: Safaa Boubia, Nisrine Oukacha, Fatima Zzahra Meziane, Fatima Zahra Oumenni, and Imane Nassif. We have been working together since the ladies arrived in September to create Connect to Impact – a new online platform offering resources for nonprofits in Morocco to showcase their actions plans, increase their awareness and access to donors, and in time, improve their skills through fit-for-purpose training. Connect to Impact will provide a bilateral matchmaking algorithm between donors and nonprofit organizations.

Team Morocco presented about Connect to Impact at TechWomen Pitch Day yesterday. We find out at the Community Event on Monday, 22 October 2018, which of the twenty country teams won.

What is TechWomen?
TechWomen empowers, connects and supports the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East by providing them the access and opportunity needed to advance their careers, pursue their dreams, and inspire women and girls in their communities.

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.

Part of the joy of TechWomen is its large and supportive community. My daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman is also a TechWomen mentor, again coaching Team Palestine, which also gave an excellent pitch yesterday.  During the intermission, we got to see videos from TechWomen Fellows of prior years, including Solve24, created by our own 2017 Team Lebanon. Wish us luck in winning the pitch competition!

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).
Photos Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson

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/

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).