Blog of the day: Women In Tech: Bissan Al-Lazikan

Did you know that almost 40% of the world’s population will develop cancer during their lifetime? While this number is daunting, the cancer research community has faith in the intersection of cancer biology, mathematics, machine learning, and data analytics to find treatments and eventually a cure for this stubborn disease.

Dr. Bissan Al-Lazikani heads the Institute of Cancer Research as the lead Data Scientist. She collects data from patients undergoing cancer diagnosis and recovery and manipulates the data sets to discover patterns. As a result of her efforts, her team has the world’s largest cancer disease information database.

In the video below, Dr. Al-Lazikani discusses the importance of computer science and data collection for the discovery of new medical treatments, especially for cancer.

Blog Of The Day: Getting Creative with Raspberry Pi – LightShowPi

We are also suckers for a good Christmas son et lumiere. If you’re looking to make something yourself, LightShow Pi has been around for some years now, and goes from strength to strength. It’s still in active development from what we can see, with new features for this Christmas like the ability to address individual RGB pixels. Most of the sound and music displays you’ll see using a Raspberry Pi are running LightShow Pi; it’s got a huge user base.

This display from the USA must have taken forever to set up: you’re looking at 4,000 lights and 7,800 channels.  Here’s something more domestically proportioned from YouTube user Ken B, showing off LightShow Pi’s microweb user interface, which is perfect for use on your phone. All of this is set up and working through Raspberry Pi. Who thought that little of  a device can do such big things as this.

Check out The video for the LightShow Pi:

Blog of the Day: Women In Tech – Fei-Fei Li

Can you imagine a robot that can hold a conversation or identify pictures just like a human? Ever wonder what technology empowers Siri, video games, and music and movie recommendations? Artificial Intelligence, or AI, can be used to build remarkable technologies like these.

In this exciting time, Dr. Fei-Fei Li wants to democratize AI, since she believes that AI technology should benefit everyone and not just the privileged. Currently, Dr. Li works as an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, and directs the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Vision Lab. She also co-founded AI4ALL, a nonprofit working to increase diversity and inclusion in artificial intelligence.

Watch the video below to hear more about Dr. Li’s discovery of computer science and artificial intelligence as a student. Later in the video, she talks more about her current image recognition research and the importance for diversity in artificial intelligence.

Blog Of The Day: The Advantages of using Scratch as your language!

In the past week blogs, we discussed why is it important to use python as your programming language. However not everyone likes using the same language, but lucky for us there is a major variety of languages that we can choose from. From which one is Scratch. Scratch is a programming language and an online community where we can program and share interactive media such as stories, games, and animation with people from all over the world. As we create with Scratch, we learn to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically. Its a really easy language to learn even if you don’t know anything about programming.

The advantages of using scratch are listed below:

1) Scratch allows for young people to integrate creativity in storytelling, games, and animation. Kids can collaborate on projects through the use of Scratch, and share their projects online.

2) Scratch allows students to develop 21st century skills through the use of technology.

3) Scratch can be used by people of all ages including students from elementary- high school ages, and adults in a variety of settings.

4) Scratch is used in over 150 counties and available in over 40 languages. This is great for teachers that are working with bilingual or ESL students.

5) Scratch can be used across curricula and students and teachers can create and share resources via scratch.

6) A major advantage of scratch is that it is a free program so people can access and utilize scratch for both personal and academic use.

Blog Of The Day: 5 Ways Women in Tech Can Beat the Odds

These are tough times for women in technology. Female workers are flooding out of tech company jobs, a phenomenon blamed in part on the industry’s patterns of sexism.

A recent Center for Talent Innovation study found that women in science, engineering, and technology are 45% more likely than male peers to leave their industries. Many cite a feeling of being stalled in their careers and excluded from their workplace’s culture; a whopping half say their coworkers believe men have a genetic advantage in math and science. And 44% agreed with the statement, “A female at my company would never get a top position no matter how able or high-performing.”

Despite the odds against women in technology, both research and anecdotal evidence suggest there are approaches female techies can use to rise up. Here are five of them:

1. Be Assertive, Not Aggressive

The researchers found that when a “masculine” woman also exhibits social grace and self-awareness, she gets more promotions than other women and men. So while both men and women should of course keep it classy when they stand up for themselves, women have even more to gain by doing so.

2. Dream BiG

A common mistake that female entrepreneurs make, says Women Who CodeCEO Alaina Percival, is getting too hung up on the plausibility of their ideas.

3. Don’t Promise—Surprise

The solution, according to study authors Ayelet Gneezy of U.C. San Diego and Nicholas Epley of University of Chicago: When you really want to impress, hold back on making any promises and just surprise people with your finished product.

4. Brag Better

It is often said that women in technology need to be better at “selling themselves” to compete with male peers, who typically find it easier to trumpet accomplishments. Women are culturally expected to still come off as especially humble.That makes it hard to overcome the embarrassment associated with bragging.” We stay quiet and hope that if we work hard and have lots of output, we will get promoted.

The problem is that staying silent about your accomplishments often means you’ll get passed over, as others are rewarded with more responsibility and higher salaries. One way to overcome your discomfort with bragging is to do it in writing. You could send your boss an email, for example, documenting your team’s successes for the year, making it clear that you played a leading role.

5. Find Sponsors, Allies, and Resources

Many accomplished women in tech cite mentors and “women-helping-women” channels as key factors in their success. But getting ahead takes more than a little networking or advice. Having good relationships with your colleagues in general and garnering support from higher-ups makes a huge difference.