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TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-04-19
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeTLopLkEo
I'd like you all to close your closed okay no you can't see me right now but I'm actually riding a unicycle juggling hundreds of false don't keep your eyes closed now it's really great that okay so close your eyes and picture an engineer the room got a picture in there had non you okay open your eyes raise your hand if you pictured a guy sitting alone
in a computer thank maybe kind of nerdy pocket protector raise your hand if you pictured a train driver that's all I hands res your hand if you picture day young guy in a hoodie maybe looks a little like mark Zuckerberg perhaps raise your hand if you pictured someone who looks like me CAC not a lot of hands well if you didn't raise your hand for me
I'd like you to please get up and leave just getting if you can raise your hand for me it's all right I get it all the time usually when I tell people I'm an engineer they look at me and they say no really what you do or are they looking into home ho you must genius or my favorite is when I told my mother I wanted
to major in engineering she said ill why the truth is I'm a female engineer and I'm a minority only eleven percent of engineers in the U. S. are women so why does this matter why do we care so what leads to some of the men do all the engineering well engineers are making some of the biggest advances in our society there solving things like global warming
making medical breakthroughs some of the biggest technologies are changing our lives these are things that we use every day as people that make our lives better and with half the population being female we deserve to have the female perspective it'll only get better a female perspective but today engineering really as a boy's club and I don't sedan but I am here today to share my story
about how I discovered a passion for engineering and I'm here to make a bold claim I don't fit and but I believe that our little girls well so this is me when I was little girl age six I was a pretty normal kid I loved ballet and drawing and writing by X. I grew up in a small town in Rhode Island age sex coincidentally this is
around the age where most girls start to lose interest in math and science this young and it's interesting some people think well biologically maybe girls just aren't as good at those subjects maths the weighted to camp right nature well there was a study done very recently across sixty five countries around the world where they tested boys and girls on the same science test around the world
girls outperformed the boys but not in the U. S. what this study suggests is that it's not a biological thing it's a cultural thing and this is our culture this is what we grow up and us girls the toy aisle the perfect example of our culture where we are taught from a very young age that we want to become princesses I remember when I was a
little girl adults would Pat me on the head much I come from a Jewish family so they would grab me by the plenum and say tapi you are so smart good for you and I remember as a little girl being so disappointed wishing that they told me I was pretty I wanted to be pretty it in one of the smart by the time my senior year
of high school rolled around I was applying to college and I asked my math teacher to write my recommendation letter and she said okay W. over you plan to major and I'll write it in the letter and I said I don't know she said how about engineering I think you would really excelling at and I thought engineering I close my eyes and I pictured I train
driver I had no idea what engineering wise and I was way too embarrassed to ask her I didn't want to sound stupid but I thought no way you and some hearings that's for boys it's intimidating and and worrying and I would see ever think that a creative artistic girl like me would ever like engineering no way but I went off to Stanford which was a big
deal in my high school they actually announced it over the loudspeaker and when I got to stand for my freshman year I had no idea what to major and and thought that message about math teacher had died engineering you should give it a try it stuck in my head and so I thought what the heck I'm gonna take ME one no one just give it a
try because I couldn't shake about advice which you've given me and I was so worried that it was gonna be my first half I was terrified but I went into the class and in that class I finally knew learned what engineering really was and to my surprise we weren't fixing train engines in that class we got to invent and design things we assignments like make a
catapult out of a soda bottle in a piece of string and five paper clips and a piece of foam core it was so cool and so much fun in that class I learn that engineering is really the skills that to build anything you dream up in your head whether it's a website or mobile app to a bridge to highway anything that's what engineers build and what
an amazing skill set how empowering to be able to build whatever you want problem was I felt kind of eleven I was always one of a handful of girls in my classes and I did not that and in fact it's only twenty percent of undergraduate degrees in engineering intact and science are awarded to women so it's a real problem but I stuck with it I loved
the major and I wanted to do it that is until I took an engineering drawing class about halfway through my major and I thought engineering drying this is gonna be a little freaked I love art finally I'm gonna get to draw and the problem was in this class you had to draw in perspective draw in three D. and for some reason I had this total mental
block was really struggling with the material and our final assignment we had to put our drawings up on the wall for critique and you could tell all the guys in the class about eighty of them at five of us girls the guys scribble their drying ten minutes before and slaps up on the wall meanwhile I had spent hours the entire weekend and even go to any
parties working on my drying and when the professors went around the room when they got to my drying they took a look at it and they looked out to the room and they side breeze your hand if you think Debbie surpassed this class and I stood there beet red humiliated looking around some people are half raising their hands I was horrified and they're like come on
raise your hand if you think Debbie should pass the class the room was silent finally my good friend piped up and said how Dario how dare you home humiliate her in front of this room she obviously is put a lot of effort and it's your responsibility to teach her not to make fun of her well I'm glad he said that but even still the tears are
streaming down my face he ran out of the classroom and I thought this isn't for me I'm not naturally good at this stuff maybe I should just give up engineering a lot of girls around this time in their college career think my friend came out and he said W. don't give up you can do it and I'll help you just have to work hard together you'll
pick up the stuff I know you well so him and I use to go from not moment on to the library and sometimes we'd be there till three four in the morning studying and then not library I saw all of those guys from my classes the guys who I thought just knew it it was so easy for them they were there at the library at three
in the morning I caught that was and I realize that it's not about being a born genius it's about how hard you work this stuff takes a lot of work but I worked really hard and I read about trying I earned my degree years later I did some research into this stuff and I actually learned that I was at a disadvantage like a lot of other
girls I had under develop spatial skills the other interesting thing that I learned is that kids who score better on spatial skills test grew up playing with construction toys my thought is in this a shame me and my little sister growing up our parents never bodice legos erector sets are Lincoln logs we all thought that those were boys toys I thought those toys been marketed to
boys for over a hundred years and they get them interested in math and science meanwhile all we get are the dolls and makeup kits and it's not fair so I thought well I'm an engineer now I have a degree I can make anything I want now I'm gonna make an engineering toys for girls and I'm gonna give them the opportunity that I didn't have so that
they can discover a passion for engineering much earlier than I did so I got to work I quit my job and I worked out of my apartment for months making a prototype how does that thread spools and wooden dowels pieces I could find from the hardware store I wanted to find a way to help girls develop their spatial skills as in all of this research and
met with little girls and I found something really interesting I buy construction toys and watch them play with them see how they could be improved and time and time again the girls who get bored with the toys and so I'd say well then what is your favorite toy and they'd run upstairs and they bring back down the book and they'd say I love reading let's read
together so I came up with a really simple aha idea what if I put those two things together spatial plus verbal a construction site plus stories and what if the stories were about a girl engineer character named Goldie blocks and so he goes on adventures she solves problems by building simple machine and so the girls read along they get to build with Goldie it would bring
in a role model and it would bring in the narrative that they so laughs I I made this prototype and I went around the bay area testing it on hundreds of kids and it worked I had little girls into to this building belt drives it was awesome and I I knew I was on to something so I had all of these ramshackle prototypes in my apartment
and I've been working for months ago hermit not showering and a friend of mine said Debbie do you wanna take this to the next level do you trust me I said yeah I do you trust me like okay were not a movie which is a talking about he said you need to apply to this tech accelerator program it is the most elite program Silicon Valley all
the top engineers around the world by for a position in this program you need to apply so I applied and I got into the big interview day and I walked into a room of mark Zuckerberg's sitting there on their computers meanwhile me walking in the check with the physical prototypes and I had a napkin over it because obviously had to protect my intellectual property and so
I'm walking in there and cautious do I not fit in and one of the guys pipes up and says %HESITATION did you bring us cookies well my confidence was pretty shot and needless to say I I didn't get into the accelerator they didn't understand why on earth I would out a book so they didn't get it but I didn't give up so I brought my prototype
to the New York toy fair is the international biggest toy show in the U. S. and I thought okay this is it I'm gonna go I'm gonna show toy industry veterans when I talk to store owners and see what they have to say about my engineering toys for girls and I what's in their thinking toy fair is going to be awesome there's gonna be all these
creative types mad scientist kids running around it's going to be so cool it was a bunch of old men in suits I don't fit come on I got through engineering and now this so I showed people my prototype and they all kinda looks at me with pity and they say they whispered me a well known industry secret construction toys for girls don't say and they took
me by the arm and they showed me what does South the pink Kyle and they said this is the way it is and so we've come full circle and I felt pretty dejected after that toy fair but I wasn't willing to give up just because this is the way things are doesn't mean it's what pets how they have to be and so I took my prototype
I partnered with the factory and I turned it into a real toy the thing was the factory minimum order was five thousand toys and with all this rejection I didn't know if people were were gonna want it so I put it up on Kickstarter I had a goal of raising a hundred fifty thousand dollars and thirty days to make this toy a reality I I hit
go cross my fingers and I hit my goal in four days and our minimum production it didn't end up being five thousand units and ended up being over twenty thousand I have stores calling from all over the world take my customers are coming in they want gold box what is the faculty blocks I had parents calling in saying yes my daughter is more than just a
pretty fast I had press writing articles all about it the world was waiting for this they wanted this the toy industry had it wrong yeah sure some girls like princesses and tiara thing and I like that stuff too but there's so much more to us than that there's so much potential and for me I couldn't be more happy to be putting my engineering skills into this
product because that leverages not only the math and science but I work so hard to learn but also leverages my creativity and engineering is such a creative thing and I never knew it and it's so fun for me to get to use my creative voice and my artistic skills as a part of engineering it's so important that we include that perspective and the other thing that's
so great about it engineering is for people we're designing things for people so how fun for me to get to spend my time playing and learning with little girls and understanding what their needs are and designing things for them it couldn't be more rewarding our toys are now hitting the doorsteps of thousands of girls around the world I just got an email from a mom whose
side we love playing goalie blocks my four and a half year old halfway through the game looked at me and said mommy and my an engineer and her mom said yes sweetie you can be you can be anything for so long for so many years I felt like I didn't fit and but now I feel like I belong here I feel like I belong and our
