Inspiring the next generation of female engineers: Debbie Sterling at TEDxPSU
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Close your eyes and picture and engineer. You probably weren't envisioning Debbie Sterling. Debbie Sterling is an engineer and founder of GoldieBlox, a toy company out to inspire the next generation of female engineers. She has made it her mission in life to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math. GoldieBlox is a book series+construction set that engages kids to build through the story of Goldie, the girl inventor who solves problems by building simple machines. Debbie writes and illustrates Goldie's stories, taking inspiration from her grandmother, one of the first female cartoonists and creator of ""Mr. Magoo."" Her company, launched in 2012, raised over $285,000 in 30 days through Kickstarter, and has been featured in numerous publications such as The Atlantic and Forbes. Prior to founding GoldieBlox, Debbie served as the Marketing Director of Lori Bonn, a national jewelry company. For the past 7 years, she has also served as a brand strategy consultant for a wide variety of organizations including Microsoft, T-Mobile, Organic Valley and the New York Knicks. Debbie's inspiration to create a mission-driven company came in 2008, when she spent 6 months volunteering at a grassroots nonprofit in rural India. She created a viral fundraising campaign called ""I Want a Goat,"" raising over $30,000 for economic and educational development in the region. This experience helped pave the way to finding her true passion: inspiring the next generation of female engineers. Debbie completed her degree in engineering at Stanford (Product Design, '05) and currently lives with her husband in San Francisco. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
Comments
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I want to be an electrical engineer.
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Good Work Debbie !!! Keep it up !!!
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What exactly is a "female perspective" to begin with? As far as I know there's no evidence, something like that exists. At least not in the matter of hard science. You can build a bridge only in so many ways. There are physical laws and mathematical calculations, which are the same for women and there's a budget to build it with. Maybe "female perspective" means painting the bridge pink and green with sweet kittens and puppys?
What's so bad, if there's a group of white men only for instance? Why would they all think alike? Since when does diversity mean gender or skin colour? Diversity is a question of personality and mind. Diversity means different thoughts from different brains. This includes women and/or other minorities, but it's not necessarily any different from just another white man. Men are not some homogenous mass, they are individuals too, with individual thoughts. If there is a certain way women or black men, for instance, think in science-related matters, then prove it. -
It's not a very clever, nor wise premise to tell your children they can be anything. Instead you should work out their talents and also observe their weaknesses, so you're able to focus on the strenghts and promote them in the right direction. It's an illusion to think you can do literally everything, that's definately not true. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist, don't fool yourself. There ARE biological differences between people, which can not be overcome with any amount of training. Again, no one said, life's fair.
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Now close your eyes and picture a flight attendant. You could do this experiment with countless jobs, that are typical male or female dominated. Majority of nurses, barbers and teachers are women, so most people would picture a women. Conversely you got construction workers, mechanics or engineers, who would be overwhelmingly male. Yes, there are social and financial reasons for the different choices of men and women. Men are still expected to earn well and most female dominated jobs just happen to be paid relatively low wages. Men otherwise don't demand a good income for their partners. Then there are the children and most women want to stay at home at least for a while. They don't want their husbands at home with the kids. People make decisions based on real life circumstances and financial considerations. There's no room for experimenting with gender roles for most people.
Generally I don't think there are any real exceptional barriers in the western world for women to pursue such fields. At least not more, than a man would face if he wants to be a kindergartener. There are however, several studies that show a clear preference for women in richer countries to choose the job they like. In poorer countries, there may be more demand for women in "hard science", because of economical considerations. They simply have no need for many social scientists, they need engineers to get stuff done.
There are tendencies and differences and women as a whole don't tend to seek the technical stuff quite as much as men do. It's the same with men, there are certain jobs, most men wouldn't feel comfortable with. But that doesn't mean there are no women with capabilities and interest for such fields. If you're pursuing a field of personal interest and it happens to be "typical male" science-related stuff, just do it, if you think you can do it. Don't think of yourself as a "female engineer", just engineer, nothing special about being female, sometimes it happens shock. If you're determined enough and know your skills, you'll just do your thing and don't care much about the rest, just like a man. It's not like men never face any obstacles in life. Most men need to do a lot, to be really accepted and successfull. No one said it's easy. Also, men know that there are exceptions to the rule and sometimes there will be a woman or two in their beloved computer science class. I can't picture a bunch of "nerds" harassing a woman for being a woman. That's ridiculous. Never experienced something like that anywhere to be honest (in Germany). Quite the contrary, women were mostly treated in favor of men and everyone looked out to not hurt their feelings. If anything, some women need to toughen up a bit. Life is not always fair and there's no guarantee for luck in life.
People have different talents and intellect, you may be not able to do EVERYTHING, but that's normal. Men have to deal with this as well. Sometimes you realise, you're just not good enough in a certain field. If you realised that, just focus on something else, where you're good at. Maybe you have a good brain for verbal abilities, but not so good visuospatial. Or you're a mathematical genius but can't communicate for good (cliché, but I think it gets the point across). -
Females in STEM majors are so ugly.
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Worthy cause until I heard the typical feminist stereotype at
2:20 "But today engineering is really a boy's club..."
> By your own account, stereotypes are damaging and here you are stereotyping.
Big deal you say? Well, how about this stereotype then:
I wonder how many professors this knockout had to sleep with to get her degree?
The fact remains that in most Western nations, women could care less about STEM even when it is free to them. -
This is extremely inspiring as i'm applying for colleges now to become a chemical engineer. I really hope this sort of attention to the lack of female engineers only increases.
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I'm studying to be a civil engineer..hope I succeed
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we need ,ore women working in sewage ckeaning and trash colecting
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Next assignment:Inspiring the next generation of male nurses.
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I guess the key was not giving up after the 2nd big rejection (Toy Fair). There's probably a lesson in this - go to the internet first (much bigger and wider audience, faster reach, so acceptance is better)
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I'm currently working towards my bachelor's in engineering. I'm a female and not the smartest, but I am determined to succeed for my daughter. It is so nerve wrecking and intimidating!!
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This presentation is absolutely fascinating and an 'eye opener' for stereotypes. I would like to see much more female participation in the field of engineering and sciences. Debbie set a great example for aspiring girls to emulate her success and make their lives valuable by positive contribution. Move on girls!
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Btw it is not just in Engineering but any field where men dominate. I even see that inability sometimes in sports because of the type environment girls get at younger age. i love ya, woman! spot on! you rock!
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LoL this is exactly the same theory i developed through my observation! :0 i love you, woman! We need girls in engineering! Not just for engineering but for guys like us! attendance will increase! and then we will get our perfect beautiful nerdy girl who we can work together with! :0 i love you, woman
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This was such a heartfelt Ted talk & really hit home for me as an industrial engineer in my senior year. Especially personally this week because I have dealt my whole college life with doubters and disbelievers in my intelligence and diligence & to realize I'm not alone in feeling alone was very awakening and motivating. I'm so inspired to inspire young females to dare to challenge societal pressures and expectations and open the minds of the close minded. An engineer once asked me what it was like to be in a "mans world" and I replied with "I'm used to it and it's not a mans world, it's our world"
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Man this is inspiring for me a teen girl that wants to be a bio medical engineer.
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so inspiring <3
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I was inspired since always since wen I was 10/11, I close my eyes I see me myself as an engineer & never changed my mind still now I'm college after a few I will go to Uni. Never ever I will give up to engineering
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