How I Got Involved with Volunteering to Help Kids Learn to Code

Recently at work, I’ve been reminded how lucky I was to get interested in computer science while I was in high school. My school offered both regular and AP computer science, and I was allowed to do an independent study one semester. These were pretty great opportunities that allowed me to foster and then pursue […]

Evolving Education Practices in Soft Skills

When I got out of college, I had most of the necessary technical chops, but it hadn’t really prepared me for working in teams. We hadn’t had any specific training on how to work with others effectively. I needed to develop my interpersonal skills. Fortunately, many schools are evolving their education plans to help develop […]

Why it’s Time to Retire the Software MVP

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) term has outlived its usefulness. Since “MVP” was first popularized by Eric Reis’s book The Lean Startup in 2011, it’s become a catch-all term that means both far more and far less than it once did.

Seven Influential and Inspirational Women in Tech

The topic of gender diversity in technology is becoming increasingly popular as the gender gap begins to close, but I find that people do not really understand why this diversity is important–or even more worrisome, how women can contribute to the advancement of technology.

Using the Culture Cycle to Shape Your Company Culture

A few weeks ago, I wrote an introduction to the Culture Cycle, a model for understanding how culture changes over time. Today, I’d like to give two examples of the Culture Cycle in action, specifically in the workplace.

Resources for Middle School Girls to Learn Programming

While we were at the Junior Achievement Girls Dream Fair a few months ago, a middle school girl came up to our booth. She went carefully through a sheet of questions, writing down my answers word for word. “Anything else you’re curious about?” I asked when she was done. After a pause, she asked, “Is […]

The Culture Cycle: A Model for Understanding Company Culture

As a recent college graduate, it’s been exciting to apply things I learned in school to real-world scenarios. Not all of those topics have been totally relevant, but a few have definitely stuck with me. One is called the Culture Cycle, which is used to model the evolution of cultural norms and practices within social […]

Coding Bootcamps Have a Fundamental Problem

One of the aspects of my role at Atomic Object involves hiring new employees. Throughout this process, I’ve come in contact with a lot of graduates from coding bootcamps across the United States. To date, none of these graduates have been a good fit for Atomic. This fact has led me to start formulating a […]

A Moral Justification for Diversity In Tech – Why “Good for Business” Isn’t Good Enough

This past weekend, a memo by a Google employee criticizing the company’s diversity goals and practices was leaked to the media. The memo presents sexist and thoroughly debunked views about women, and the ensuing conversation about diversity has been both heated and informative. I have found, however, that there’s something mostly missing from this conversation: a […]

Ask these Questions when Applying Machine Learning to People

The field of machine learning matured with applications like spam filtering, targeted advertising, self-driving cars, and weather predictions. As machine learning techniques are increasingly used to make predictions about people, there are a few machine learning ethics questions we need to be asking ourselves.

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Evolving the Industry