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.

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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!
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4th Edition: “Notable Women in Computing” Playing Cards Listing

Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Susan Rodger and I have just updated the Notable Women in Computing playing cards – publishing the 4th Edition since 2014. These will be available for sale at the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education – SIGCE 2019 event, and (as always) on Notable Technical Women. The cards have been updated to reflect some of the new honors for these remarkable leaders – and this is the first version in which each of the 54 honorees has a photo, plus a link to her Wikipedia page. In the first edition, 25% of the honorees did not have a Wikipedia page.

Notable Women in Computing playing cards are associated with the long-term “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing” project.  We encourage you to use this information to inspire students and teach computer science, and write or improve Wikipedia pages – especially creating new pages about remarkable women who have none. Please watch our 2014 Kickstarter video about why we picked these 54 women from among all of the remarkable technical women.

All 54 cards:

Suit	Honoree Name	Position, Honors, Awards	Wikipedia Link
Joker	Maria Klawe	Harvey Mudd College President, ACM Fellow, Canadian Information Processing Society founding Fellow, ABIE Award – Leadership	Linked Here
Joker	Mitchell Baker	Exec.Chair Mozilla, ABI Woman of Vision, Internet Hall of Fame, Webby Lifetime Achievement	Linked Here
Hearts	Queen– Frances Allen	IBM Fellow Emerita, Turing Award, Computer History Museum Fellow, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
❤	King– Barbara Liskov	MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM Fellow, SWE Achievement Award, National Inventors Hall of Fame	Linked Here
❤	Jack– Shafrira Goldwasser	MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM-W Athena Lecturer, ACM Fellow	Linked Here
❤	Ace– Hessa Al Jaber	Qatar ICT Minister, Chair CS Department – Qatar Univ.	Linked Here
❤	10- Mary Jane Irwin	Pennsylvania State Univ. Professor, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, NAE Member, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
❤	9- Irene Greif	ABIE Award for Technical Leadership, IBM User Experience Group, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, Formed Lotus Research 1992	Linked Here
❤	8- Duy-Loan Le	Senior Fellow-Texas Instruments, WITI Hall of Fame, ABI Women of Vision	Linked Here
❤	7- Grete Hermann	Univ. of Göttingen mathematician, 1926 foundational paper for computerized algebra	Linked Here
❤	6- Manuela Veloso	IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow, ACM Fellow, JPMorgan Chase AI Research head	Linked Here
❤	5- Lila Ibrahim	COO DeepMind, CBO Coursera, Founder Team4Tech, ABI Woman of Vision, Purdue University-Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer	Linked Here
❤	4- Padmasree Warrior	Former Cisco and Motorola CTO, WITI Hall of Fame, Distinguished Alumni Award from IIT Delhi	Linked Here
❤	3- Genevieve Bell	Australian National University Director – Autonomy, Agency and Assurance Institute, ABI Woman of Vision, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
❤	2- Marilyn Wescoff	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Diamonds	Queen– Anita Borg	Founder Anita Borg Institute, WITI Hall of Fame, Fellow ACM, EFF Pioneer	Linked Here
♦	King– Deborah Estrin	MacArthur Fellow, IEEE Internet Award, ACM, AAAS and IEEE Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
♦	Jack– Yuqing Gao	Former IBM Distinguished Engineer, ABI Woman of Vision, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♦	Ace– Susan Graham	UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor, ACM, IEEE, NAE, AAAS Fellow	Linked Here
♦	10- Cristina Amon	Univ. of Toronto Dean-Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, IEEE Fellow, SWE Achievement Award, Canadian Academy of Eng., Spanish Royal Academy, Royal Society of Canada, US NAE	Linked Here
♦	9- Betsy Ancker-Johnson	1st observation of microwave emission without the presence of an external field (1967), Fellow Am Physical Society, Fellow AAAS, IEEE Fellow, Member NAE	Linked Here
♦	8- Arati Prabhakar	Former head US DARPA and NIST, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♦	7- Sophie Vandebroek	COO IBM Research, former CTO Xerox, IEEE Fellow, WITI Hall of Fame, Royal Flemish Academy for Arts & Sciences Member	Linked Here
♦	6- Ruzena Bajcsy	UC Berkeley Professor, NAE and NASIM Member, Fellow ACM, IEEE, AAAI, and AAAS, IEEE Robotics and Automation Award	Linked Here
♦	5- Laurie Hendren	Professor McGill Univ., ACM Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada	Linked Here
♦	4- Lixia Zhang	UCLA Professor, ACM and IEEE Fellow, IEEE Internet Award	Linked Here
♦	3- Betty Snyder	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, IEEE Computer Pioneer Award	Linked Here
♦	2- Kay McNulty	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, National Inventors Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Spades	Queen– Grace Hopper	US Navy Admiral, 1st compiler for a programming, Computer History Museum Fellow, Dist Fellow-British Computer Society, Fellow AAAS, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Hopper College at Yale University	Linked Here
♠	King– Chieko Asakawa	IBM Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, Japan Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon Member US NAE	Linked Here
♠	Jack– Denice Denton	Univ. California Santa Cruz Chancellor, AAAS Fellow, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♠	Ace– Radia Perlman	Intel Fellow, IEEE and ACM Fellow, 1st ABI Woman of Vision award winner, National Inventors Hall of Fame, Internet Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♠	10- Clarisse de Souza	Professor PUC Rio de Janeiro, CHI Academy, Scientific Merit Award of the Brazilian Computer Society	Linked Here
♠	9- Linda Petzold	Univ. California Santa Barbara Professor, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, NAE Member	Linked Here
♠	8- Jennifer Widom	Professor Stanford Univ., ACM Fellow, AAAS Member, NAE Member, Dean-Stanford School of Engineering, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
♠	7- Jean Sammet	IBM Researcher, 1st woman ACM President, ACM Fellow, Computer History Museum Fellow, NCWIT Pioneer Award	Linked Here
♠	6- Helen Greiner	CEO of CyPhy Works, Founder iRobot, ABI woman of vision, WITI Hall of Fame, Presidential Ambassador for Global Leadership	Linked Here
♠	5- Anuradha Annaswamy	MIT Senior Research Scientist, IEEE Fellow, Hay Medal, Indian Institute of Science	Linked Here
♠	4- Qiheng Hu	Founder, China Internet Network Information Center, Internet Hall of Fame, Research Professor – Chinese Academy of Sciences	Linked Here
♠	3- Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♠	2- Fran Bilas	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Clubs	Queen– Katherine Johnson	NASA Mathematician, calculated the trajectory of early space launches, NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, Subject of movie “Hidden Figures”	Linked Here
♣	King– Augusta Ada Lovelace King	Mathematician, 1st computer programmer 1843	Linked Here
♣	Jack– Jennifer Chayes	Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist, ACM Fellow, ABI woman of vision, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, von Neumann Prize	Linked Here
♣	Ace– Vicki Hanson	CEO of ACM, Former RIT Distinguished Professor, Professor Univ. of Dundee, ACM Fellow, SIGCHI Social Impact Award, ABI woman of vision, Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh	Linked Here
♣	10- Ellen Ochoa	NASA Astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director, 1st Hispanic woman in space, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, Harvard Foundation Science Award, San Diego State Univ. Alumna of the Year, Astronaut Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♣	9- Tova Milo	Professor Tel Aviv Univ., ACM Fellow, Academia Europaea	Linked Here
♣	8- Valerie Taylor	ACM Fellow, Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♣	7- Kathleen McKeown	Professor Columbia Univ., ACM and AAAI Fellow, Founding Fellow Association for Computational Linguistics, ABI Women of Vision	Linked Here
♣	6- Susan Landau	Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, National Cyber Security Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♣	5- Mary Lou Jepsen	Founder OpenWater, former Google X Head of the Display Division, ABI Woman of Vision, WITI Hall of Fame, One Laptop Per Child Designer	Linked Here
♣	4- Kristina Johnson	National Inventors Hall of Fame, Former Undersecretary US Dept. of Energy, IEEE Fellow, Member NAE, ABI Woman of Vision, SWE Achievement Award	Linked Here
♣	3- Sophie Wilson	Broadcom Director IC Design, Designer Acorn Microcomputer, Computer History Museum Fellow, Fellow Royal Society-London	Linked Here
♣	2- Jean Bartik	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, Fellow Computer History Museum, IEEE Computer Pioneer Award	Linked Here

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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!

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Photos Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson

Making a Rock Garden

My daughter Jessica and I took a break from our professional and academic responsibilities to make her a new rock garden yesterday. When we travel, she and I interview rocks large and small which might want to come home with us. This summer, Jessica and I each brought home a selection of boulders. I used mine to extend my informal rock wall which is both decorative – and keeps the dogs from racing through my flower beds.

Jessica dedicated her new boulders to a rock garden next to the driveway and then used the decorative river rocks that we took out of where the rock garden was installed to trim her street side planting bed.  For the plantings in her rock garden, Jessica selected:

• Lithops – also called living stones
• Aloe – descended from a single plant I gave her in college
• Portulacaria – also called elephant bush (both green and variegated with red stems)
• Sedum – or stonecrop
• Echeveria – also called hens and chicks, with pink edges

After tilling the soil below, taking out larger rocks, and digging in soil amendment,  we used pieces of slate and flat stones behind the boulders to create basins of top soil for the news plantings – and to direct moisture away from the side fence.  The stones form the bones of the garden, the aloes provide form and structure, and the smaller plants and seashells add color and contrasting shapes.  We added two potted succulents in green pots for height and variety.  Jessica will extend the garden further when she adopts new boulders during future travels.

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Photos Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson and Jessica Dickinson Goodman.

Starting Book Two

Last month, I finished revising and printing/binding 256 pages (in 17 sessions of Book One – “The Hebrew Bible“) for the pilot version of the new “The Transforming Literature of the Bible” (TLB) course. Today, I finished revising 140 pages in the first 9 sessions (out of 19) of TLB Book Two (“The New Testament“).  Production starts tomorrow.  I am collaborating on the revision of TLB with the Rev. Canon William H. Barnwell who wrote the original course. In addition to revising Canon William’s 2008 course materials, I am running a pilot version of the class itself at Elmwood Jail (Milpitas, California). I am grateful to my Co-Mentors Diane Lovelace, and my husband, John Plocher (with the Rev. Peggy Bryan as backup). This program is supported by the Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy  (CIC) and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.  Thanks to Collette Lynner of CIC for supporting TLB production.

Six students are finishing the 17 sessions in Book One this Friday.  We start studying Book Two next week.  The inmates are very enthusiastic, doing their extensive homework reading and participating energetically in in-class discussions and reflections.  There is a waiting list of inmates from two dorms to join us.

Literary selections are included in TLB to provide a diverse context in which to understand some of the major themes in the Bible passages under consideration.  In addition to readings in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), the students of Book One have also read:

1. “The Welcome Table” story by Alice Walker (1973)
2. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1955)
3. “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” poem by Mohja Kahf (2003)
4. “The Son from America” story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1973)
5. “The Big Red Apples” story by Zitkála-Šá  aka Red Bird (1900)
6. “My Last Duchess” poem by Robert Browning (1842)
7. “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King (1963)
8. O Pioneers! excerpt by Willa Cather (1913)
9. “The Family of Little Feet” story by Sandra Cisneros (1984)
10. The Gangster We Are All Looking For excerpt by Lê Thị Diễm Thúy (2003)

The Book Two (New Testament) students will read these literary selections in Part One “A Journey With Mark“:

1. “At the Arraignment” poem by Debra Spencer (2004)
2. “A Private Experience” story excerpt by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
3. “Sonnet XXVII” by William Shakespeare (1609)
4. “Under the Poplars” poem by César Vallejo (1919)

One of the TLB students wants me to start another Education for Ministry (EfM) seminar in their dorm after I finish Books One and Two of TLB. Joel Martinez and I are Co-Mentors for a weekly EfM seminar which started in 2015 in another dorm where inmates tend to stay inside longer. I designed TLB to be finished in 5 months but EfM takes four 9-month terms to complete. I told him that if he can find ten other students who will be there for long enough, I will start another EfM class.

Other than my ongoing project as the Mentor for the Shakespeare Reading Group, TLB is one of the few times since I was graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in English (with a specialty in Shakespeare) that my knowledge and passion for literature has been of such use.  I am very much enjoying reviewing potential TLB selections.  Thanks to my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman for her advice on some of the selections, and to John for reviewing my drafts.

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Image Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson.

Easter Egg Hunt 2018

Easter was on Sunday 1 April in 2017 (also John’s Birthday!) and as usual we had friends, family, and neighbors over for a potluck brunch and Easter Egg Hunt in our back garden and on WP668. The Associate Easter Bunny wrote a very difficult set of riddles for the adults to find the Gold and Silver Eggs.

Gold Egg
The clue has 3 words; each quatrain is a clue for one of them.

Birds circle in their dances, bright pinions
a-spinning as they whirl; making circles
and ovals and untracable-shapes to
describe with their sleek bodies this first clue.
The second clue is the colonial name
of an Alaskan burb, whose name now means
either a place for gathering potatoes
or snowy-owl in old Iñupiat.
Third clue: what do snakes and shells and people
and varicella-pox and cats and dogs
and lizards and chameleons and rats
and nematodes and bats do in common?
Hold up one finger, tap three on your arm:
that’s quatrain one and two. A charades charm!

Solution: The Gold Egg was in a brown paper bag behind a storage shed next to a yellow wheelbarrow.

Silver Egg
Literary references may require a search engine for non-English majors

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote |
In the swamp in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a
song. | queer / old balloonman whistles / far and
wee and bettyandisbel come dancing |
Can curls rob can curls quote, quotable. As
presently. As exactitude. As | [Here]
keys in hand, I’ll reach the landing and / you’re
there—the one lesson I never get right. |
It has taken / seventeen years. This trip,
these characters patterned / in black ink, curves |
having been previously hardened, tempered
or sprung. Precision Steel’s inventory |

Solution: The Silver Egg was in a brown paper bag tucked into the end of a leaf spring under the WP668 caboose.

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Images Copyright 2018 by Katy Dickinson (with one from Jessica Dickinson Goodman).