so my name is Dave Patrick I I work with
an organization called tech girls I’m a
Microsoft certified trainer I’ve got a
bunch of letters for passing a bunch of
exams but I really like to teach I mean
I I work for a DoD contract or DSA over
at the army and I teach people how to
use computers big Microsoft guy we do
things like SharePoint I actually have a
user group mad SharePoint we call it mad
because Sheriff what makes us mad all
time but because I love to teach so much
I I decided you know I’d like to tea I
like to explore more helping other folks
get into STEM science technology
education Matt I have two young kids
well they’re not young anymore now
they’re 18 and 19 to me they’re still
you know three and four but my daughter
specifically I was worried that she
wouldn’t get into technology apparently
there’s a disproportionate amount of
females in technology it’s a problem
that this organization tech girls aims
to fix they want to inspire girls to
explore the possibilities of Technology
and not to be discouraged by the
environment that exists out there that
kind of makes them fear getting into
technology there’s been some studies
done that and middle school girls are
you’re okay with technology but they’re
not given the opportunities to advance
in it and there there’s this as they as
they advanced through high school
there’s a bit of an environment that
kind of makes them fear getting into
technology so we said you know what
we’re going to try to fix that we hooked
up with this organization called tech
girls myself my daughter so what is tech
girls tech girls is an organization out
of Philadelphia and they’re nationwide
but they provide these things called
tech shop in a box and what this is is
its curriculum it’s it’s slides its
workshop plans its activities
and they help us to be to easily run
these workshops that inspire young women
young ladies to get into technology so
there’s all sorts of cool ones that you
can do there’s one called you can code
there’s newsroom story production
there’s podcasting video casting we just
did one Wednesday night over the Harford
County Boys and Girls Club
it was mobile app design and it’s been
really successful wildly successful let
me tell you a little bit about the
organization that I work with because
it’s not all just me I have a team that
helps me out so this is one of our first
workshops that we did and they all got
the cool tech girls two t-shirts like I
have over on the right you’ve got my VP
of Aberdeen Cathleen Kerik way on the
left in the front there is Tracy Shriner
she’s our chief learning officer there’s
a bunch of young women that attended
there’s some other volunteers my
daughter’s up there in the far right
smiling above Kathleen and the idea is
that we want to get together we wanted
to show these girls hey look these are
some things you can do it’s not just
guys that do this and it was a smashing
success
we started off that’s my daughter back
at April 30th 2016 and she kicked off
our first ever workshop 14d essay she
did this you can code website create
your own excuse me triggering website
workshop and what we found out was it
was amazing then the girls first started
with the WordPress tool we use WordPress
they were unsure they were like well
what is this gonna you know I’m not
really you know this is a geeky thing
it’s computers but they really connect
it with Sarah Sarah was 16 at the time
that she was leading by example she she
showed them a great little web site of
her calves because she likes cats and
the girls next thing know they’re like
wow we can do this too
they had websites on music pets up let’s
jump ahead of it
they had what else did they have there
was one they actually surprised us with
the subject of their website there was
one on social injustice blacklivesmatter
wow these are middle school girls but
the technology is no longer
barrier instead it was just another tool
they did you know so they were just
taken off we actually had one girl asked
us I’m building this website and it’s
gonna you know let people take pictures
of things that they want to sell called
you sell I guess or something I think
there’s one that there were you buy this
I’d never heard of it
the girl was teaching me something she’s
like yeah and then they’ll take a
picture and then they can sell it but
mr. Patrick I don’t know how do I
copyright this she’s thinking of it wow
these girls I mean really impressive so
once we got past a technology there’s
miss Erin up there explaining something
about probably about copyright because I
didn’t know the answer the toughest part
of these workshops is that they’re only
two hours long and we literally have to
you know we bribe them with pizza at the
end to get them to stop working on the
program so okay take a break you can eat
the pizza and we’ll come back next time
and finish up so it’s been really
exciting really inspiring to see these
girls dig in we did a workshop called
what’s in a computer and the what’s in
the computer ship workshop was really
interesting we had some lessons learned
with that one we we brought in some of
our daily used computers and we said hey
girls you know we’re gonna show you how
to take them apart and then put them
back together
well they had so much fun taking them
apart there’s a young Lea whipping out
the hard drive getting it back together
not so much so after that when we did
the next run of this particular workshop
we made sure to use over older computers
but the interesting thing there was
because they were older computers and we
really didn’t care about them their
girls really took off they were in their
elbows deep they wanted to pull out the
RAM they wanted to pull out the the CPU
I was like well there’s a fan on top of
that CPU they said we’ll give me a
screwdriver and sure I said okay maybe
they unscrewed the fan they pulled up
the CPU I mean they’re talking about
component level I thought they wanted a
soldering iron next to to be able to
completely take that apart but what was
amazing about this was that the girls
had no fear when we start they were you
know well can we get electrocuted you
know what do we have to watch out for we
explained to no no no we’re on make sure
they’re unplugged using a no static
bracelet so you don’t damage the
components but you know once they knew
that there wasn’t really
to be worried about they had no fear you
can see these girls a I mean they were
just uh next slide shows a bunch of the
young ladies the computers were so
stripped stripped bare and this is me
with a kind of a smirk on my face I had
just asked one of the girls you know can
I be of some help
no mr. Paddick we got this I said okay I
guess I have time take a selfie who just
they really the other thing that was
interesting about this is a lot of times
the girls would say it raise your hand
for a potential question how come over
and I’d say yet can I help you
and they were well no we don’t really
have a question oh okay yeah walk away
but then I seemed raised our hand again
and Sara or one of the other young
ladies would come over they just want to
show off what they had done Hey look at
my website Hey look I pulled out the
hard drive they were really proud of
what they had done but it was it was
important that they were sharing it with
someone they could connect with I had
some girls I connected with about it but
but but you know usually using young
ladies like Sara really helped which is
eventually I’m gonna I’m gonna ask if
any of you would like to get involved so
why should you get involved this is my
aha moment this is me saying you know
what I got into this to help the girls
be inspired to overcome their fear of
technology or their fear of the
environment surrounding technology I
want to inspire a courage within them
but what I found that was they were
inspiring me I had reached out and
became part of this program because I
was kind of feeling uninspired at work
day to day I helped someone get into
SharePoint or I might help somebody
reboot their computer give email access
whatever but it wasn’t very fulfilling
on the level that this does when I go
out and we work with these girls and me
and my whole team we come out energized
we come out we’ve learned things the
girls inspire us to think of better
ideas for next time so that’s my shock
look I’m like you know what I’m not sure
who’s getting more out of these
workshops the girls are made it’s very
inspiring to work with these young
ladies
so that’s my call to action for you guys
any of you young women and men who might
who are thinking about doing this this
is a nationwide tech girls organization
tinyurl.com tech girls volunteer tech
girls with a Z they have workshops
running all time that they need people
just to help out with and that’s how you
can get started to show up at a workshop
and you know handout answer questions if
you want to run your own workshop they
can help you do that too that’s what we
do we work with the Harford County Boys
and Girls Club all four locations I
promise you you won’t be disappointed
you get out there one of the young
ladies will ask you a question that kind
of challenge the way you think about
things you know what I am getting more
out of this than I thought
it’s very inspiring is anyone out there
thinking about it do we have any
potential I have I have I had I put a
seed in anyone’s mind that maybe you
should try because if if I have I’ve got
some some things I’m gonna throw out a
few seeds if I could throwing out that
way the one over there these this is
this is my inspiration to you young
ladies so so there’s a tech you can rock
the texture all yeah over there
absolutely hang on in the back there
there we go I want you guys to think
I said I got one more to wait in the
back there and right here that’s my last
one thank you guys very much I
appreciate I hope you were inspired [Applause]
an organization called tech girls I’m a
Microsoft certified trainer I’ve got a
bunch of letters for passing a bunch of
exams but I really like to teach I mean
I I work for a DoD contract or DSA over
at the army and I teach people how to
use computers big Microsoft guy we do
things like SharePoint I actually have a
user group mad SharePoint we call it mad
because Sheriff what makes us mad all
time but because I love to teach so much
I I decided you know I’d like to tea I
like to explore more helping other folks
get into STEM science technology
education Matt I have two young kids
well they’re not young anymore now
they’re 18 and 19 to me they’re still
you know three and four but my daughter
specifically I was worried that she
wouldn’t get into technology apparently
there’s a disproportionate amount of
females in technology it’s a problem
that this organization tech girls aims
to fix they want to inspire girls to
explore the possibilities of Technology
and not to be discouraged by the
environment that exists out there that
kind of makes them fear getting into
technology there’s been some studies
done that and middle school girls are
you’re okay with technology but they’re
not given the opportunities to advance
in it and there there’s this as they as
they advanced through high school
there’s a bit of an environment that
kind of makes them fear getting into
technology so we said you know what
we’re going to try to fix that we hooked
up with this organization called tech
girls myself my daughter so what is tech
girls tech girls is an organization out
of Philadelphia and they’re nationwide
but they provide these things called
tech shop in a box and what this is is
its curriculum it’s it’s slides its
workshop plans its activities
and they help us to be to easily run
these workshops that inspire young women
young ladies to get into technology so
there’s all sorts of cool ones that you
can do there’s one called you can code
there’s newsroom story production
there’s podcasting video casting we just
did one Wednesday night over the Harford
County Boys and Girls Club
it was mobile app design and it’s been
really successful wildly successful let
me tell you a little bit about the
organization that I work with because
it’s not all just me I have a team that
helps me out so this is one of our first
workshops that we did and they all got
the cool tech girls two t-shirts like I
have over on the right you’ve got my VP
of Aberdeen Cathleen Kerik way on the
left in the front there is Tracy Shriner
she’s our chief learning officer there’s
a bunch of young women that attended
there’s some other volunteers my
daughter’s up there in the far right
smiling above Kathleen and the idea is
that we want to get together we wanted
to show these girls hey look these are
some things you can do it’s not just
guys that do this and it was a smashing
success
we started off that’s my daughter back
at April 30th 2016 and she kicked off
our first ever workshop 14d essay she
did this you can code website create
your own excuse me triggering website
workshop and what we found out was it
was amazing then the girls first started
with the WordPress tool we use WordPress
they were unsure they were like well
what is this gonna you know I’m not
really you know this is a geeky thing
it’s computers but they really connect
it with Sarah Sarah was 16 at the time
that she was leading by example she she
showed them a great little web site of
her calves because she likes cats and
the girls next thing know they’re like
wow we can do this too
they had websites on music pets up let’s
jump ahead of it
they had what else did they have there
was one they actually surprised us with
the subject of their website there was
one on social injustice blacklivesmatter
wow these are middle school girls but
the technology is no longer
barrier instead it was just another tool
they did you know so they were just
taken off we actually had one girl asked
us I’m building this website and it’s
gonna you know let people take pictures
of things that they want to sell called
you sell I guess or something I think
there’s one that there were you buy this
I’d never heard of it
the girl was teaching me something she’s
like yeah and then they’ll take a
picture and then they can sell it but
mr. Patrick I don’t know how do I
copyright this she’s thinking of it wow
these girls I mean really impressive so
once we got past a technology there’s
miss Erin up there explaining something
about probably about copyright because I
didn’t know the answer the toughest part
of these workshops is that they’re only
two hours long and we literally have to
you know we bribe them with pizza at the
end to get them to stop working on the
program so okay take a break you can eat
the pizza and we’ll come back next time
and finish up so it’s been really
exciting really inspiring to see these
girls dig in we did a workshop called
what’s in a computer and the what’s in
the computer ship workshop was really
interesting we had some lessons learned
with that one we we brought in some of
our daily used computers and we said hey
girls you know we’re gonna show you how
to take them apart and then put them
back together
well they had so much fun taking them
apart there’s a young Lea whipping out
the hard drive getting it back together
not so much so after that when we did
the next run of this particular workshop
we made sure to use over older computers
but the interesting thing there was
because they were older computers and we
really didn’t care about them their
girls really took off they were in their
elbows deep they wanted to pull out the
RAM they wanted to pull out the the CPU
I was like well there’s a fan on top of
that CPU they said we’ll give me a
screwdriver and sure I said okay maybe
they unscrewed the fan they pulled up
the CPU I mean they’re talking about
component level I thought they wanted a
soldering iron next to to be able to
completely take that apart but what was
amazing about this was that the girls
had no fear when we start they were you
know well can we get electrocuted you
know what do we have to watch out for we
explained to no no no we’re on make sure
they’re unplugged using a no static
bracelet so you don’t damage the
components but you know once they knew
that there wasn’t really
to be worried about they had no fear you
can see these girls a I mean they were
just uh next slide shows a bunch of the
young ladies the computers were so
stripped stripped bare and this is me
with a kind of a smirk on my face I had
just asked one of the girls you know can
I be of some help
no mr. Paddick we got this I said okay I
guess I have time take a selfie who just
they really the other thing that was
interesting about this is a lot of times
the girls would say it raise your hand
for a potential question how come over
and I’d say yet can I help you
and they were well no we don’t really
have a question oh okay yeah walk away
but then I seemed raised our hand again
and Sara or one of the other young
ladies would come over they just want to
show off what they had done Hey look at
my website Hey look I pulled out the
hard drive they were really proud of
what they had done but it was it was
important that they were sharing it with
someone they could connect with I had
some girls I connected with about it but
but but you know usually using young
ladies like Sara really helped which is
eventually I’m gonna I’m gonna ask if
any of you would like to get involved so
why should you get involved this is my
aha moment this is me saying you know
what I got into this to help the girls
be inspired to overcome their fear of
technology or their fear of the
environment surrounding technology I
want to inspire a courage within them
but what I found that was they were
inspiring me I had reached out and
became part of this program because I
was kind of feeling uninspired at work
day to day I helped someone get into
SharePoint or I might help somebody
reboot their computer give email access
whatever but it wasn’t very fulfilling
on the level that this does when I go
out and we work with these girls and me
and my whole team we come out energized
we come out we’ve learned things the
girls inspire us to think of better
ideas for next time so that’s my shock
look I’m like you know what I’m not sure
who’s getting more out of these
workshops the girls are made it’s very
inspiring to work with these young
ladies
so that’s my call to action for you guys
any of you young women and men who might
who are thinking about doing this this
is a nationwide tech girls organization
tinyurl.com tech girls volunteer tech
girls with a Z they have workshops
running all time that they need people
just to help out with and that’s how you
can get started to show up at a workshop
and you know handout answer questions if
you want to run your own workshop they
can help you do that too that’s what we
do we work with the Harford County Boys
and Girls Club all four locations I
promise you you won’t be disappointed
you get out there one of the young
ladies will ask you a question that kind
of challenge the way you think about
things you know what I am getting more
out of this than I thought
it’s very inspiring is anyone out there
thinking about it do we have any
potential I have I have I had I put a
seed in anyone’s mind that maybe you
should try because if if I have I’ve got
some some things I’m gonna throw out a
few seeds if I could throwing out that
way the one over there these this is
this is my inspiration to you young
ladies so so there’s a tech you can rock
the texture all yeah over there
absolutely hang on in the back there
there we go I want you guys to think
I said I got one more to wait in the
back there and right here that’s my last
one thank you guys very much I
appreciate I hope you were inspired [Applause]
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