Diversity Starts at the Kitchen Table: Six-Year-Old Girls Learning to Code, Deploy, Release and Iterate

Creating a more diverse tech workspace requires a different kind of “pipeline” – one that creates tech curiosity and a sense of mastery in underrepresented teammates from an early age.

Commodity hardware and DevOps principles can play a role.

I share how $65 of pre-integrated parts, small batch sizes and limiting WIP resulted in squeals of delight from my then six-year-old daughter as she learned she could code, deploy, test and iterate until the software and hardware did what she wanted it to.

The key (and not just with six-year-olds) is fast cycle time! In sprints of 5-10 minutes each, she was able to write and deploy code, test, and iterate (all without handoffs or waiting for resources).

I end the talk with a QR code for you to easily clone this idea for your own home and any community you are connected with.

Transcript

1. @davekarow Diversity Starts at the Kitchen Table Six-Year-Old Girls Learning to Code, Deploy, Release and Iterate
2. @davekarow Creating a More Diverse Workforce Requires a Different Sort of Pipeline
3. @davekarow Make coding more tangible. • Tech Curiosity • Sense Of Mastery
4. @davekarow Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana
5. @davekarow Credit Where Credit Due! Angie Jones @techgirl1908
6. @davekarow Angie’s Talk: Coding Future Coders
7. @davekarow
8. @davekarow Angie Asks: What’s up with the ladies?
9. @davekarow
10. @davekarow WTH?
11. @davekarow
12. @davekarow Blameless Postmortem + Next Action
13. @davekarow This is my world
14. @davekarow $65 Kit micro:bit & Integrated Parts
15. @davekarow Small Batch Sizes Limiting WIP Fast Cycle Time
16. @davekarow Frequent Deploys
17. @davekarow Inputs, outputs make sense to her! Rotating board “kicks” the ball:
18. @davekarow Happy 6 Year-Old She learned she could: • Code • Deploy • Test • Iterate ...until the software & hardware did what she wanted it to.
19. @davekarow • $65 Kit • Docs • Editors
20. @davekarow DevOps as a teaching strategy: who knew? Please Steal This Idea!