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]