2-26-16
The annual Seattle Central College Glitter conference was amazing and inspirational for everyone. Six Seattle High Schools including Franklin High School, Chief Sealth High School, South Lake High School, Ingraham High School, The Center School, and Rainier Beach High School brought IGNITE girls to Seattle Central College. The girls attended three technology classes including How to build your first Android app, How to build a responsive web page, and Your future in IT (Security and Social Media), and enjoyed a lunch while listening to a panel of 7 professional women from Starbucks. The Starbucks women shared their career story and mentioned how they got to where they are today, what obstacles they had to overcome to get to where they are today, and spoke about their jobs and what they do everyday.
The girls were able to ask questions and get a better understanding of various technology and IT jobs are available to them, and how women chose their college majors and career paths. The girls loved the discussions and mentioned how inspired they were after the conversations.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you to Lisa Sandoval for planning and organizing this wonderful event and to the Seattle Central College teachers, Sara Newman for leading the web design workshop, Stani Meredith for leading the Android App workshop, and Ed Messerly for leading the workshop on Your future in IT and Assisted Intelligence. Thank you to the Seattle Central Volunteers: Semhar Tekeste, Eleni Teka, and Paul Mansoor who made the event run smoothly.
Thank you to Cathi Rodgveller who worked closely with Lisa Sandoval to make this event happen; she organized and coordinated with the Seattle High School teachers, Starbucks, and Seattle Central college.
A special thanks to Kari Paakaula for organizing all the Starbucks volunteers and arranging the Starbucks gifts for the IGNITE girls. Thank you to each of our Starbucks volunteer speakers, including Shami Okafor, Colleen Mandell, Nancy Chou, Suzanne Willard, Surekha Vuppala, Jyoti Raj, and Poonam Thawani. Each of these volunteers shared their stories with the girls, and it’s what makes this experience so relevant and valuable. The girls relate to the speakers and see how similar they are to them: they went through a lot of things, did not have it easy, and had to work hard, but triumphed because they never gave up. It’s an amazing message and one that changes these girls lives forever. Thank you to everyone who shared their stories and answered questions with care and such thoughtfulness.
Thank you to all the Seattle High School teachers for this event, including Rainier Beach teacher Brian Fleishman,
South Lake teacher Paige Wakamatsu, Ingraham teacher Lawrence Tanimoto, Center School Teacher Wyn Pottinger-Levy, Chief Sealth teacher John Wright, and Franklin teacher Julie O’Brien. IGNITE teachers recruit all the girls who came to the Seattle Central Glitter conference and all volunteers who helped manage the girls during the event. We are so glad to be working with each of you – your enthusiasm and passion for this program is amazing!
Here are the comments from the Student Evaluation surveys. The girls always say it best.
The highlight for me was how to change the image by changing the size of the screen. I enjoyed taking the web design and android application class and how we got to learn about them. The speakers were really interesting because they talked about their careers. The speakers were really confident. Franklin High School, Grade 10
I enjoyed learning how to create our own android app. I really liked the speakers and learned a lot. I liked how they told their stories and inspired me. Chief Sealth, Grade 10
I liked how the panelists gave us a chance for Q&A, I liked the coding intro as well as the android application intro, and I also liked how the women talked about their professions. My favorite parts of the workshops was the video on your future in IT, how to build your first andriod app – liked the interactivity, and build a responsive website – the introduction to coding. I really like how all the speakers spoke a little about themselves, as well as answer our questions. I like how speakers from Starbucks actually came and spoke about their jobs. Chief Sealth, Grade 10
The highlights for me were the message from the women from starbucks and learning how social media companies are not secure. I enjoyed learning about your future in IT, building my first Android application and building a responsive web page by finding the pictures. The speakers said uplifting and motivating things. Chief Sealth, Grade 10
I enjoyed learning about the jobs and what schools the women went to learn to code and how much money they get and earned. I really enjoyed listening to the Starbucks speaker and understanding their perspectives on their jobs. Inspirational speeches. I liked the android workshop and the future workshop because of the creations; the Lynda workshop was good too. Chief Sealth, Grade 12
I learned alot about code and web development. I liked how to write code and create my own web page. The speakers were very interesting and motivational. South Lake, Grade 12
I really enjoyed the technology and felt the classes were encouraging. I thought the Starbucks speakers were interesting and I loved the stories. South Lake, Grade 9
The message I remember is bringing girls into technology and helping us learn. I enjoyed the workshop where we watched the videos of the thought of the future. I liked that the Starbucks speakers went into detail and were very nice about the subject. The speakers are really nice and help me have a better understanding. Rainier Beach, Grade 9
The highlight of this conference was when we had the panel, and going to the computer lab to talk about robots. I love the workshop talking about robots, because he was very thorough and talked at a decent speed. My thoughts about the speakers were that they were very personal and talked about their life out of school. The Center School, Grade 11
I enjoyed personalizing a basic web page and hearing the keynote speakers introduce themselves. I liked the coding parts because they related to the type of stuff I’m learning in Java. I liked that the speakers worked in a lot of different areas in the Starbucks IT department, as they were able to share about different experiences. Rainier Beach, Grade 11
I learned alot of new skills and received great advice about my future. I really liked the web development class because we were able to code. I thought the speaker’s stories were inspiring and interesting. I enjoyed learning about the Boston robots and thought it was cool. South Lake, Grade 11
Learning how to use programming software like brackets was a highlight for me. I liked how the teachers were willing to help us along the programming lesson. The keynote speakers were inspirational and awesome for being POWERFUL women in STEM fields. The speakers helped lead this conference and I appreciate it. Franklin, Grade 10
I really liked the hands-on learning – creating our own webpage and putting our own photos in it. I also liked listening to the videos of how office technology will be in the future. The keynote speakers were all great and had a lot of experience and wisdom to share with us. Ingraham, Grade 10
The workshops were very interesting. I really enjoyed the web design workshop because it kinda reminded me of a tumblr page. The speakers were very knowledgeable in their field. I enjoyed how they spoke of their hardships in this field. The speakers seem very nice. I really liked how they told us about the opportunities that were available. Ingraham, Grade 10
Highlights were the IT opportunities and coding. I enjoyed the coding class the most. I thought the speakers were very nice. Their discussions were very thought provoking and eye-opening into the technical field. Ingraham, Grade 10
The highlight of this conference for me was the inspiring message for women that you can achieve anything. I liked how we witnessed new technology that is developing and how our phones can easily be hacked. I liked the stories of how the speakers first doubted themselves, but worked hard to get to where they are now. The speakers were encouraging and made the experience fun and not boring. Chief Sealth, Grade 10
The highlight for me was being able to hear each story and the process of the women’s perspectives. I enjoyed the web design class – I liked how you can program what you want the computer to do and get a website out of it. The computer science was an eye opener. I liked the message from the speakers that no matter what path in life you choose to take, it can always change and that’s ok and success will happen. I think they all had really great advice to give for girls. The Center School, Grade 11
I liked designing my own website. It was cool being able to do hands on activities. We got to see the results of our labor and it was very rewarding. I liked the activities we got to participate in from website design, making an android app and hearing about social media security. Franklin, Grade 10
The highlight for me was an inspiring message that made me realize that women can achieve anything. I liked that women were leading the conference and their message was very inspirational. South Lake, Grade 10
I really liked the workshop with that guy who showed us the videos. Very informative. The web design class was kinda fun because we actually learned something. The speakers were very encouraging and helpful. They were very interesting. Chief Sealth, Grade 11
The highlights were the importance of joining STEM and doing a job that relates to it. I enjoyed doing the workshops, visiting Seattle Central college and the food & drinks! I liked the web design class the most. The speakers were really professional: sharing their stories and being really comfortable about it. They also took their time to answer questions. They were good and gave us lots of information. Ingraham, Grade 11
The whole thing was pretty interesting, but I liked the videos where the guy wearing the Microsoft shirt was showing. The speakers were very interactive and are pretty strong especially for being the only women in their work environment. The teachers knew alot about what they were teaching and they spoke in a very engaging way. Ingraham, Grade 12
The panel was the highlight for me, but also being able to see the coding for ourselves. The editing a website with HTML with Sara was my favorite. All the women on the panel had interesting stories, input, and advice. The Center School, Grade 10
I enjoyed watching the Microsoft videos of the future. Also I liked making my own web page. The speakers expressed themselves very well. They seemed to love their jobs. Everyone did good/great. Gave lots of information which is very helpful. Ingraham, Grade 12
The highlights for me were the Starbucks speakers sharing their job careers and what led them to code and learning how to code from the professors today. Ingraham, Grade 11
The highlight of the conference was having the ability to see the coding and being able to learn new things about technology. I loved having the hands-on parts and being able to visually see everything. The starbucks ladies were great, they were well explanatory and answered questions fully. The teachers were pleasant and helped me understand computer science better. While they verbally explained things, they also did it visually which helped a lot. Rainier Beach, Grade 10
The highlights of this conference is to be able to learn coding and what the future may look like. I thought the Starbucks women were very interesting; it makes me want to work at Starbucks. South Lake, Grade 10
Very inspirational women. Programming allows us to manipulate things in a way where we can have it do anything we do. The speakers were very open about what they went through. The women are really inspirational especially how they were able to come here to speak to us and give us the opportunity to know how to do things. Franklin, Grade 10
I think the conference was amazing. Everything was a great experience. We got to learn and experience many thing and things that we never even learned before. We got advice and tips from amazing women in technology. I enjoyed making/designing an android app. It was really cool seeing how much you can do and create through technology. The women from Starbucks really helped me understand more about their careers and gave me great advice/tips. Franklin, Grade 10
The highlights were the IT opportunities and coding. I liked the coding workshop the best because it was really interesting and hands on. They keynote speakers were very nice and were very considerate in the questions they were answering. The speakers were very thoughtful and helped me understand the benefits of this career path. Ingraham, Grade 10
The highlights of the conference were that it was very informative in terms of the path on becoming someone who works in a male-dominated field. Encouragement for anyone who seemed unsure and the open-ness in terms of personal experiences. From the “Your Future in IT” – I enjoyed learning about the interactions between different kinds of software. From Building your first Android app – I found it very helpful in terms of going step-by-step in the process. From building a responsive web page – the experience was interactive and very hands-on. The speakers had a lot of useful information that helped and encourage me to really consider thinking about a career in technology. It was nice to learn about a different person’s experience. Chief Sealth, Grade 10
I think all workshops gave me more insight on each subject and I now have a little bit of an idea of how college classes work. Franklin, Grade 10
It was an inspiring day for everyone! Thanks for the wonderful experience and all the stories!
-Audra, IGNITE Director of Development and Operations