{"id":18914,"date":"2017-11-08T16:47:36","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T21:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18914"},"modified":"2017-11-08T16:47:36","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T21:47:36","slug":"young-women-learn-technology-is-a-field-for-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/young-women-learn-technology-is-a-field-for-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Young women learn \u201ctechnology is a field for everyone\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

They set out to break down barriers for young women like themselves interested in pursuing careers in the technology sector, and that is just what sisters Maya and Amanda Bishop did with Why Code Aurora.
\nOver 100 young women from Aurora\u2019s public and Catholic schools, and students from beyond our community, descended on Aurora High School for the panel discussion organized by students for students.
\nThe sisters, both students at Aurora High School, brought together a panel of leading women in their industry not only to give tips on how to break into what is often seen as a male-dominated profession but to help break through glass walls and ceilings on their own.
\n\u201cWe had about 100 people turn out and it was really amazing to see them all,\u201d says Amanda. \u201cAt the same time, our speakers were able to make connections within their fields.\u201d
\nAdds Maya: \u201cWhat I liked was how diverse the speakers were because I think it gave girls who came to the event a better understanding of how the jobs in tech fields are so different from each other. Iona Tucker, one of the people who works at Watt Pad, in her field, even though it was still in technology, it was based more around helping people so it shows how some of the jobs can be less about the programming, which some girls might find boring or confusing, and can be helping people, which they might want to do, while still being a tech job.\u201d
\nMany of the 100 people who came out to Why Code Aurora submitted their questions in advance by text and it was up to Amanda to pepper the panel with a wide array of queries weighing on teens\u2019 minds.
\nThere were a lot of questions on what courses they needed to take in order to make the grade, says Amanda, and whether maths and sciences are particularly important for pursuing a career in the tech sector.
\n\u201cThey said maths are really important and girls need to keep doing math all throughout high school and university because it is going to be essential in these fields,\u201d says Amanda.
\nFrom Maya\u2019s perspective, what added to the excitement was the organic nature of the discussion.
\nThe panellists, she said, didn\u2019t have anything prepared. They simply asked them to explain a bit about their profession, how they did their job, before turning to the questions.
\n\u201cWhen answering their question they did have some interesting topics they talked about,\u201d she says. \u201cKate from IBM said in the meeting take a seat at the middle of the table because she finds typically, as she helps mentor people who are doing internships at her business, she finds that girls often don\u2019t feel comfortable going to the middle of the table and they will sit on the outside of the room. But, she said it is important to sit in the middle of the table because then you\u2019re involved with the discussion and people will hear what you have to say too.
\n\u201cThey have a realistic view of their careers. They didn\u2019t make it sound like it was this glossy fairy tale, but at the same time they said you can stand up in your career and do a good job with your career. It is a really good career to get into because it is a really interesting career that pays well.\u201d
\nAs they look back on the fruits of their labour, Maya and Amanda say the summit only served to reinforce their desire to pursue their dreams and they hope it inspired others to do the same.
\n\u201cGoing forward for me and Amanda, we just want to make sure we try and stay involved in this community,\u201d says Maya. \u201cFor the future, I want to be able to inspire more girls. We had a lot of nice feedback and we sent a survey out to everyone who ordered tickets online. 35 per cent said it was above their expectations and the rest said it met their expectations. All of the people said they were really impressed by the event and some of the parents said they wished they had something like this when they were in high school.\u201d
\nAdds Amanda: \u201cFor those who didn\u2019t attend the event, the main message ended up being that technology is a field for everyone and to work hard on those maths in particular and make sure this is an opportunity for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They set out to break down barriers for young women like themselves interested in pursuing careers in the technology sector, and that is just what sisters Maya and Amanda Bishop did with Why Code Aurora.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-09-13-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4V4","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 03:21:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}