Short Bio:

Briana Johnson. Attended Hampton University where I obtained BS in Computer Information Systems. Recently finished up at Carnegie Mellon University where I obtained MS in Information Technology - Software Management. I have had 5 internships throughout my studies, all in technical roles at various companies. Will start full time position sometime in the Fall.

My Experience:
I had the opportunity to be a technical mentor at the Black Girls Code - Love is Respect hackathon, hosted at Impact Hub in Oakland, June 7-8. This hackathon was also held simultaneously in Brooklyn, NY. Overall I believe the numbers were about 200+ girls(ages 7-17) who took part. This was actually an organization I had been following for years and so I was really excited to be involved.

I honestly did not feel like I was prepared to be a technical mentor at least on my own, but they assured us the morning of that even if we were just able to kind of guide them through the ideation and design processes, that would be great and they would be there if we ever got stuck technically. They actually were low on volunteers, so all the help they could get, they needed, and I figured I could at least do that much. Volunteers ranged from teachers and professors to engineers from Google or other tech companies to students like myself. It was a diverse group but I was really glad to see other black women in the room.

So originally, I had not planned to attend the second day being that Oakland is a little under an hour away from where I lived and commuting both days would be a lot. However, after I spent just an hour with the young ladies and realized how much they needed the help in terms of volunteer shortage, I knew I would come back the next day.

They split the girls into teams of about 5 girls each within middle or high school sub groups. I decided to work with middle school girls since their were a lot more of them there and I feel like I could get away with looking a little bit older than them (would you believe I actually got mistaken as a middle schooler as well -___-). Anywho, I found working with middle school kids is a little challenging because they are still very energetic and have pretty short attention spans when they are working on or doing something that is not as exciting (p.s. thank God for MS teachers). However, my girls were so excited about their own ideas that it really wasn’t too hard to keep them forward. I will say I had an awesome set of girls, so it honestly didn’t take much to even get them started. The only thing I really made sure was that I kept them focused. They did get a little overzealous when it came to designing and drawing out their ideas (oreos, their app name was “Ask the Oreo”), so I made sure they got to drafting out the purposeful things and meaning behind their idea and then allowed them to draw a lot, and i do mean a lot of oreos. I outlined and condensed a few things for them, just to give some structure for the app flow and for their presentation, but they honestly developed and came up with everything on their own. It’s amazing how much children can accomplish when you just let them be and do not stifle their creativity. I also had a co-mentor who was there to help out and would be with them Sunday morning as I was driving up and then I would finish up with them in the afternoon/evening. Two of the girls actually didn’t make it back the Sunday, so it was left up to three of them to finish it off. My co-mentor was really great with getting them started using Appery to actually develop a working prototype, which was great because I actually didn’t get to play around with the tool as much to become comfortable with it, so I’m glad she was there. When I came in Sunday, I helped them fix up and finishing touches and then prepare their presentation.

So for final presentations they gave a 5 min pitch to a group of 5 judges, their families, their peers, and all the volunteers and people involved with this event. There were approximately 15 middle school groups and 5 high school groups. My group went pretty early on, around third, and though they didn’t have much practice, they did an EXCELLENT job! I was so excited for them, and tried not to beam with too much pride as they were killing it on stage since I was up there as well to help them click through the slides/demo. While this was not about winning, I stayed until the very end because I knew in my heart they would place. After watching all the presentations, my unbiased opinion would still have them place (but of course I was biased). Three whole hours after final presentations began, they announced the winners, first honorable mentions, then third place prize which ended up being them, the Shooting Stars! They placed only after a high school team, and a girl who presented by herself and did justice for all her team members who were absent.

I would definitely do something like this again, because I believe it is needed and I know that “each one can (and should) teach one”. It is necessary that we put ourselves as images that these young ladies can look to and relate to, whether they choose to follow something in STEM or not, at least they know they have that option and they have the exposure earlier on as most peers who they will be competing with globally have had. I encourage anyone who has the chance to get involved, with something like this or start something yourself! It could be as simple as helping a little cousin learn to create their own website.

Briana