I led a project where our team created an online cyber security training game. We used behavioural science to develop the game. I hired an intern who did a wonderful job building the prototype. Our team then contracted a great agency to work with us to enhance the game. Having an applied sociologist at the helm meant that accessibility and game design was developed with inclusion from inception.
Continue reading Applied Sociology and Cyber Security
Earlier this year, I spoke at Readify as part of their International Women’s Day events held around the country. This is what I said.
I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands on which we meet. I pay my respects to any elders, past, present and emerging. As we celebrate the courage and resilience of women and gender minorities on this International Women’s Day, may we also pay respect to the traditional gender balance, leadership and innovation of Aboriginal people, embedded forever within their Custodianship of Country.
Today I’m going to start of by setting the scene with a quick snapshot of women in the tech sector, which I’m sure you’re all well aware of. I’m going to focus a little more on the solutions that come from the empirical evidence about what works in lifting up women in the workplace. I won’t talk too long, so we can have a bit more a discussion about what initiatives have worked well here or in other places where you’ve worked, or if there’s anything else you want to dive into. Continue reading Women in Tech
On 13 February 2018, I participated in the Tech Inclusion Melbourne conference. Bill Nicholson, Wurundjeri elder gave the Welcome to Country (below). He talked about using treaty to build economic capacity and sovereignty amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
My overview of the conference starts with the panel discussion that I took part in. I then reflect on the other presentations. (Note: click on images for further detail)
I’m at an Indigitek event at Google. Nancia J. Guivarra and Wayne Denning will be speaking about how to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Derek Harte from Google begins the event, speaking on importance of diversity on innovation and importance of Indigenous talent to the future of technology.
Continue reading Indigitek Presents Wayne Denning and Nancia Guivarra
I’ll be speaking on a panel at the first Tech Inclusion conference in Australia, in Melbourne, on 13 February 2018. Tech Inclusion is aimed at various practitioners from the tech industry to discuss issues of diversity. This includes: executives, hiring managers, human resources, data scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and diversity and inclusion advocates.
I’ll be on the panel hosted by Cory-Ann Joseph, UX Lead at ANZ. The panel is called: We’ve got a time machine, now what are we going to do with it?
From the event website:
Growing up in Australia came with a sense that we were lagging behind our bigger, ‘cooler’ brother of the USA – movies, pop music, concert tours all took weeks or months to get to us – if at all. But Silicon Valley doesn’t always lead the way. Mistakes were made in the ‘early’ days of diversity and inclusion: centering men at Women in Tech events, a focus on women first instead of race, and the victim-blamey rhetoric of women needing to change their behaviour. And perhaps the biggest mistake of all is that despite a decade since the first D&I efforts – not much has changed.
How can the tech industry in Australia avoid the same and chart a different course for the future?
Book on the event website.
Date: 13 February, doors open 8.30 am.
Address: Whitehouse Institute Of Design, 672 Bourke St, Melbourne.
I was interviewed by LiveScience about how sexism on Wikipedia connects with broader issues of sexism in science and technology.
Less than 10% of Wikipedia’s editors are women and yet Wikipedia is the world’s sixth most-frequently visited website. Here’s the part featuring what I said:
“Men want to shape the type of discussions that we want to have about technology, and then women’s concerns become drowned out by the idea that it’s not important,” said Zuleyka Zevallos, a sociologist and head of Social Science Insights in Australia, who has written about Wikipedia and gender in the past.
Zevallos pointed to a current online controversy called Gamergate, which began when the ex-boyfriend of a video game developer claimed that she had a romantic relationship with a video game journalist. On Twitter and other sites, the conflict quickly turned complicated and ugly, with death and rape threats leveled at female game developers and journalists…
“There is an overly aggressive editing of women’s pages,” Zevallos said, referring to pages that deal with issues of interest to women. Even the Wikipedia page for the word “woman” itself has a history of controversial edits and far more conflict on its “talk” page, where editors discuss changes, than the Wikipedia article on the word “man.” Debates range from arguments over bias and feminism to the appropriate weight for women pictured as representative illustrations in the article.
“Women just get tired,” Zevallos said.
Read the rest: http://www.livescience.com/48985-wikipedia-editing-gender-gap.html
You may have heard that Megan Smith former Vice President of GoogleX is now the Chief Technology Officer for The White House. Smith has both a Bachelor and a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, she serves on the MIT Board, and she is also a successful entrepreneur. She has an outstanding commitment to gender diversity and she is one of the few big-name leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) who is visible in her work with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. Smith was formerly the CEO of PlanetOut, an online LGBT organisation. Let’s take a look at Smith’s amazing credentials and her work on women in STEM and LGBTQ advocacy.
The Wikipedia page for #YesAllWomen, a record of an anti-sexism online protest movement, is being edited to make it “less misandrist.” This Wiki page documents the Twitter hashtag that is being used internationally by women to share their experiences of sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination following the Isla Vista mass shooting in America. Some men are using this tag to listen and support women, but predictably, others are abusing it to hurt women and argue that the hashtag is “sexist against men.” The Wiki edits matter because Wikipedia has a massive problem with sexism. These edits reflect the very issues of gender violence, intimidation and power that the #YesAllWomen hashtag is trying to address. Continue reading Sexism on Wikipedia: Why the #YesAllWomen Edits Matter
On Monday the 28th of April at 730am Aussie time (Sunday 27th 230pm USA Pacific) I’ll be co-hosting this discussion for STEM Women on G+.
A write up of the video is on the STEM Women website.
On STEM Women, we did a series of posts on women who are pioneers in STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math). I wrote a piece about Evelyn Boyd Granville, who was only the second African American woman to gain a PhD in Mathematics in the USA, in the early 1940s. I especially loved reading all her personal recollections of the sacrifices that her mother and aunt made to put her through university. It seems a moot point to say that parents play a pivotal role in their children’s success. This is not so simple when we understand the empirical evidence of how institutional and social forces can limit parents and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Parents don’t always know how to support girls into STEM careers, and more importantly, they don’t always have the resources or knowledge about where to seek additional help. This is especially pertinent for the careers of minority women in STEM. Continue reading STEM Women in Mathematics: Evelyn Boyd Granville
The Other Sociologist 