afterword (Ira's blog)

The MAGIC Project Begins ...

Five of us from Sun Microsystems kicked off the MAGIC (More Active Girls In Computing) project at the Grace Hopper Celebration in Computing Conference in Orlando on October 18th. Inspite of the BOF sessions being from 5:30-6:30pm and thus overlapping with the conference banquet reception starting at 6pm, the MAGIC BOF attracted quite a crowd. Meenakshi, one of the MAGIC team members, counted the number of attendees, and we had 54 members in the audience! And many of them stayed behind after the BOF session, to offer feedback, suggestions, advice and to sign up as MAGICMentors. We also got a couple of leads for legal and administrative help. Great!

During the BOF, the MAGIC team members offered thoughts on four main MAGIC topics: challenges, implementation, resources to utilize and publicity. And we solicited interactive audience feedback throughout the session. The discussion generated a host of ideas, including (in no particular order):

• Try to get groups of mentees from the same school, esp for middle school girls. Groups work well for middle school girls.
• Engage the teachers of the mentees, to enlist their help, directly and indirectly.
• Have a powerful introductory presentation for energizing the mentees.
• Middle and high school girls are distinct populations, so be sure to tailor the program differently for each segment.
• Investigate resources such as Girl Scouts, YMCA, the Sally Ride Festival, NCWIT and women programs in industry, for publicizing MAGIC.
• Investigate publicizing MAGIC in girls magazines such as Girls' Life and Americal Life.

We also identified a set of next steps, at the end of our presentation. This list includes:

• Start the process for establishing MAGIC as a non-profit organization.
• Finalize the MAGICMentor and MAGICMentee registration process.
• Finalize web-based training for MAGIC.
• Build MAGICMentor and MAGICmentee database.
• Plan and execute a MAGIC pilot, with the initial set of mentors and mentees.
• Plan and execute publicity events, for enlisting additional (the goal is 30) MAGICMentors and MAGICMentees in 2008.

At the end of the BOF, seven women applied for being MAGICMentors, and an additional one has applied through our website. We are very excited! We will start looking for MAGICMentees in the near future.

A couple of things are very clear in my mind from this BOF session. Mentoring middle and high school girls, that MAGIC aims to provide, seems to be a universally important and worthwhile thing to do. It is much needed at this juncture. At the same time, there are several challenges in executing such a project successfully. Clearly, this is a difficult task. All of us at MAGIC feel extremely passionate about making a difference in the lives of young girls, and feel that we are up to the challenge!

Please visit the MAGIC website for more information on this project.

Posted at 01:05AM Oct 24, 2007 by Ira Pramanick in MAGIC  |  Comments[0]

Let's Get MAGICal!!

Let's get More Active Girls In Computing (MAGIC) and lead the way into increasing the percentage (currently 28%) of women in the technology workforce.

That is the mantra of the MAGIC program. We are kicking off this project at the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing being held this month in Orlando.

The problem at hand is that the number of girls entering the high tech arena continues to drop, as does the number of girls staying in computing and technology areas in college. It is also universally accepted that this trend is not due to a lack of talent. Rather, a multitude of societal factors are largely responsible for this phenomenon. This needs a-fixing, and fixing systemically. It needs fixing now. True, there are pockets of very worthwhile efforts or projects that address this problem in certain parts of the country, but those are not widely available. What is needed is a nationwide mentoring program, available to every middle and high school girl. MAGIC aims to be such a program.

MAGIC will be kicked off at a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session at GHC on the 18th of October. The title of our BOF is Mentoring Makes MAGIC for Middle and High School Girls. We plan to discuss challenges, implementation plans, resources to utilize, and publicity plans. And anything other major issue that the BOF participants will bring up. This promises to be a very fruitful discussion, and we are looking forward to getting strong participation from the GHC attendees.

We will also be actively signing up potential mentors and mentees (or leads thereof) at GHC for MAGIC. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a very successful kickoff of MAGIC! Here're our MAGIC BOF slides.

The MAGIC website has more information about the MAGIC program. Please visit this site and send your comments, either here, or at the MAGIC website.

Posted at 01:48AM Oct 17, 2007 by Ira Pramanick in MAGIC  |  Comments[0]