Techbridge Girls

The First Lady Astronaut Trainees / Mercury 13

“The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order.”

- John Glenn of the Mercury 7, testifying before a House subcommittee in 1962

“The women underwent the identical tests that the male candidates had undergone. In the end, 68% of the women passed with ‘no medical reservations’ compared to 56% of the men. The 13 females who passed were known as the Mercury 13. They were Bernice ‘Bea’ Steadman, Janey Hart, Geraldine ‘Jerri’ Sloan Truhill, Rhea Allison Woltman, Sarah Lee Gorelick Ratley, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Myrtle Cagle, Irene Leverton, Gene Nora Jessen, Jean Hixson, Wally Funk and Geraldyn ‘Jerrie’ Cobb…

Cobb had tested in the top 2% of all tested candidates, male and female.”

After completing D-Lab’s Design for Scale course in Fall 2013, I was inspired to develop a solution in order to assist youth in emerging markets in learning the basics of product design and development in order to develop hardware solutions to improve their lives and those in their communities.

Based on my experience working with youth in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, I wanted to develop a line of do-it-yourself (DIY) kits through my nonprofit, Mbadika, that would provide a youth a hands-on method of learning the basics of hardware.

Meet The Group of Young Female Coders Who Developed A Yelp-Like Safety App

By Julie Zeilinger 

If you’ve ever used your phone to find the best burger closest to your job, a new app developed by a group of young female coders might feel equally handy.

In February, more than 70 young female coders from five international cities came together with one goal: to find inventive solutions to longstanding problems through coding. During the International Girls Hackathon a group of Brazilian women, ages 18 to 22, developed “Não Me Calo” (“I Will Not Shut Up”), an app that “lets women review and rank public venues based on the level of safety they provide for women and girls.” The app, billed as a “Yelp for women’s safety” by the hackathon’s organizers, the Global Fund for Women, won the overall competition on Tuesday.

“Não Me Calo” uses mapping technology to identify and rank venues that allow gender-based abuse and harassment to persist. This not only allows other women to wisely spend their time and money elsewhere, but also provides useful data that can be presented to business owners and government representatives to combat such treatment.

Nitric Acid + Copper : Reaction

Copper is oxidized by concentrated Nitric acid, HNO3, to produce Cu2+ ions. The Nitric acid is reduced to nitrogen dioxide, a poisonous brown gas with an irritating odor:

Cu(s)  +  4HNO3(aq)  —>  Cu(NO3)2(aq)  +  2NO2(g)  +  2H2O(l)

When the copper is first oxidized, the solution is very concentrated, and the Cu2+ product is initially coordinated to nitrate ions from the nitric acid, giving the solution first a green, and then a greenish-brownish color.  When the solution is diluted with water, water molecules displace the nitrate ions in the coordinate sites around the copper ions, causing the solution to change to a blue color. In dilute nitric acid, the reaction produces nitric oxide, NO, instead:

3Cu(s)  +  8HNO3(aq)  —>  3Cu(NO3)2(aq)  +  2NO(g)  +  4H2O(l)

Mo'ne Davis’ Chevy Ad Will Leave You With A Lump In Your Throat

Is there anything Mo'ne Davis can’t do?

After wowing the world with her arm and becoming the first female pitcher ever to win a game at the Little League World Series, the 13-year-old Philadelphian is now starring in an ad for Chevrolet.

ENIAC PROGRAMMERS PROJECT

The ENIAC Programmers Project records the stories of the six original ENIAC programmers, seeks recognition for their accomplishments and has produced The Computersdocumentary in conjunction with Google founders and leaders to tell their dramatic story.

Discovered by Kathy Kleiman, a young programmer in the mid-1980s, “the ENIAC programmers inspired me to stay in computing at a time when there were few women in my programming classes and every signal was telling me that computing was not a field for women,” she remembers.

The ENIAC programmers’ story was fascinating, but lost for more than 50 years. Kathy devoted years to ground-breaking research in the University of Pennsylvania Archives and Library of Congress, and recorded extensive broadcast-quality oral histories with four of the original six ENIAC programmers in the late 1990s with senior PBS Producer David Roland. Kathy applied for awards on the behalf of the ENIAC Programmers and joined them at the Computer History Museum, IEEE Computer Society, Women in Technology International and Women in Computing to celebrate their long-delayed recognition!

In 2013, Kathy teamed up with award-winning documentary producers Jon Palfreman and Kate McMahon of the Palfreman Film Group to tell this incredible story in the stunning documentary short, The Computers. “The Computers documentary is designed to fit into every classroom and every computing club. ENIAC Programming Pioneers Betty Snyder Holberton, Jean Jennings Bartik, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli and Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer tell their story—of how they programmed the first all-electronic, programmable computer, ENIAC, without any programming languages, tools or manuals!  They were amazing, brilliant, insightful, funny and riveting, and absolutely committed to making programming easier for the rest of us. They are Programming Pioneers to celebrate!” shares Kathy.

“Not only did they program the ENIAC, the first all-electronic, digital computer during WWII without manuals or programming languages, but they dedicated years after the war to making programming easier and more accessible for all of us who followed”, she adds.

The ENIAC Programmers story changes forever how we look at technology and computer history. It inspires young women, and young men, to believe that computing careers lie within their reach.

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Earlier this month, Congress added computer science to the list of core academic subjects as part of an update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that’ll be voted on soon.

This is a big deal! Here’s what it means:

Life is hard for women in tech — but a new documentary may have the solution 

Women In Science by meganleestudio // meganlee.etsy.com

I’m a Nerd and I’m a Diva

I’m a scientist working on tackling the issue of global poverty…

I’m an entrepreneur ensuring youth have the opportunity to make a future for themselves…

I’m an engineer building the future…

I’ve attended a HBCU and graduated from MIT…

I’m a coder, a welder, a designer, and quirky at heart…

I am the maker of tomorrow…

I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD…AND I’M SAYING IT LOUD

5 brilliant women in science who you’ve probably never heard of

A new book Headstrong: 52 women who changed science and the world, profiles 52 women who are experts in their field, from Nobel Prize winners to lesser-known individuals. Maria Konnikova, author and contributor to the New Yorker said: ‘A woman revolutionised heart surgery. A woman created the standard test given to all newborns to determine their health. A woman was responsible for some of the earliest treatments of previously terminal cancers. We shouldn’t need to be reminded of their names, but we do.’ In the spirit of celebrating women in science, here are five names you should know.

1. Henrietta Leavitt, 1868-1921

Who: American Astronomer What she did for science: Leavitt discovered the ‘period-luminosity relationship’, which enabled astronomers being able to measure the distance between the earth and other galaxies. Leavitt received little recognition in her lifetime.

2. Rosalind Franklin, 1920-1958

Who: English chemist and X-ray crystallographer What she did for science: Franklin made significant contributions to understanding the molecular structure of DNA, which has played a central role in human biology. Sadly she died of ovarian cancer aged 37.

3. Dorothy Hodgkin, 1910-1994

Who: British biochemist

What she did for science: Hodgkin developed protein crystallography, and is considered a pioneer in studies of biomolecules. She also confirmed the structures of penicillin and vitamin B and is the only British woman to have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

4. Chien-Shiung Wu, 1912-1997

Who: Chinese-American experimental physicist What she did for science: Wu made significant contributions in radioactivity research. The ‘Wu experiment’, which contradicted the law of conservation of parity, earned the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics for Wu’s colleagues Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang. As well as earning her the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978.

5. Lise Meitner, 1878-1968

Five tips for women and girls pursuing STEM careers 

Many attempts have been made to explain the historic and current lack of women working in STEM fields. During her two years of service as Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department, from 2009 to 2011, Anne-Marie Slaughter suggested a range of strategies for corporate and political environments to better support women at work. These spanned from social-psychological interventions to the introduction of role models and self-affirmation practices. Slaughter has written and spoken extensively on the topic of equality between men and women. Beyond abstract policy change, and continuing our celebration of women in STEM, there are practical tips and guidance for young women pursuing a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics.

(1) Be open to discussing your research with interested people.

From in-depth discussions at conferences in your field to a quick catch up with a passing colleague, it can be endlessly beneficial to bounce your ideas off a range of people. New insights can help you to better understand your own ideas.

(2) Explore research problems outside of your own.

Looking at problems from multiple viewpoints can add huge value to your original work. Explore peripheral work, look into the work of your colleagues, and read about the achievements of people whose work has influenced your own. New information has never been so discoverable and accessible as it is today. So, go forth and hunt!

(3) Collaborate with people from different backgrounds.

The chance of two people having read exactly the same works in their lifetime is nominal, so teaming up with others is guaranteed to bring you new ideas and perspectives you might never have found alone.

(4) Make sure your research is fun and fulfilling.

As with any line of work, if it stops being enjoyable, your performance can be at risk. Even highly self-motivated people have off days, so look for new ways to motivate yourself and drive your work forward. Sometimes this means taking some time to investigate a new perspective or angle from which to look at what you are doing. Sometimes this means allowing yourself time and distance from your work, so you can return with a fresh eye and a fresh mind!

(5) Surround yourself with friends who understand your passion for scientific research.

The life of a researcher can be lonely, particularly if you are working in a niche or emerging field. Choose your company wisely, ensuring your valuable time is spent with friends and family who support and respect your work.