Girl geek, entrepreneur and computer science student
I still remember that career defining moment. When I was 11, I was watching a TV show where the main character was a video games programmer. I thought that was the coolest job you could ever have so I studied Computer Science at Edinburgh. There, I became fascinated about how people could use computers to work more effective and efficiently. It kick-started a life-long quest in working out what makes software intuitive to use, and how we could use technology to improve our daily lives.
My pursuit has led me to my PhD topic: “Investigating Requirements Engineering in E-Science Projects”. I’m examining requirements and design issues which developers of next-generation computer-based scientific tools face. The hope is to help developers understand how to supporting faster, better and more collaborative science.
I co-founded and help run Edinburgh University Hoppers – a support group for female informatics students and also Edinburgh Girl Geeks Dinner alongside Morna, Bonnie, Allison, Sarah, Jenny and Caroline.
There was a joke between the boys about whether it’s possible to get 40 girl geeks in a room (there aren’t many of us in Scotland); not only did we achieve it, we sold out in two weeks! For women working in programming, there are still some major issues to be resolved. In the last six months, there have been two separate incidents where inappropriate images of women have being used in conferences. The percentage of female CompSci students are still low – typically 10-15%. And I hate it when people see a girl and assume they know nothing about computers. Appropriate behavior, recruitment and perception are three major themes the computing community still has to address.
I love twitter! I tweet about interesting links I’ve found, and places or events that I’m going to. My favorite twitter story was when I was leaving to go to W-Tech in Feb and a freak snow-storm hit London. I tweeted to ask whether I should go and got replies from strangers telling me how bad it was and not to bother. That’s the beauty of twitter: ask a question and you get human responses back. Be warned: it is a time-sink. You have to invest to get value back.
The future? I am launching a software design consultancy for multi-touch devices in the next few months. From iPhones to Microsoft Surface, natural user interfaces are going to become the norm in the next decade. I strongly believe that building multi-touch applications will require new ways of thinking about how we interact with computers. Being deeply unsatisfied that developers still think in the “single touch” paradigm, I want to ask – What else can we do with this technology? How will the next generation of users interact with computers?
Kate Ho is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. In her spare time, she blogs about social media, women in technology and entrepreneurship. She has a BSc Computer Science (Edinburgh) and MSc Technology Management (Manchester). She is involved with MyPolice.org. She is a member of BCS Women, and helps to organize Edinburgh Girl Geeks Dinner and Hoppers. In her spare time she blogs about social media, women in technology and entrepreneurship. She is one of four people running the Edinburgh StartupCafe - 'a fun and humorous place to go to for local startup news'.
Comments
Ruth Wilson (UKRC moderator):
Thanks so much for taking part in the blog, Kate. For many of the women who write here it is the first time they have taken part in a blog - you are one of the very experienced! I love the Edinburgh StartupCafe you are part of, where you share the blogging with others. What do you get out of blogging, would you say? And I'll just advertise your twitter address and ours - anyone wanting to join twitter should go to www.twitter.com - its easy to sign on and free. You can Twitter from your computer (and mobile - this varies a bit according to the kind of phone). Our twitter name is UKRC, and Kate is KateHo. New followers always welcome!
Kate Ho:
Hi Ruth (and everyone), I get quite a bit out of blogging. Rather unexpectedly, I've noticed a real difference to my writing abilities after I started. Even though writing a blog is different from academic writing (and I don't really write about my PhD topic), it forces me to think about my audience, my writing style and learn how to write for different purposes. I've even branched out to science magazine writing (for Ed Uni Science magazine!) Whilst I think everyone can start a blog, if you don't think you'll have time, then maybe something like twitter is good (microblogging - it's like blogging, but shorter :) Or, team up with a few buddies and take an approach like we did with Startupcafe! Jess, Tom, Bela and I are all very busy individuals and instead writing an individual blog, we post to the same blog. It has been really enjoyable, because every week we have a coffee on sunday night and work out our articles for the week. It's so much more fun doing it this way! Incidentally, I've been working on a Microsoft Surface (multi-touch table) application recently, and here's the demo: www.vimeo.com/5567256 Please feel free to comment! :)
Ayo (UKRC):
Hi Kate, Hope all is well! Its great to hear more about your background and how your passion for your industry has grown from such a young age, to where you are right now! It sounds like you are incredibly active in networks for women in IT. I wondered how this has contributed to your personal development in terms of organising events and bringing likeminded people together? This must take alot of time, effort and enthusiasm! I also wondered if you find social networking sites useful for vertical networking (networking for career progression purposes)? Also, great news about the new venture, I will stay posted to your tweets for future updates!
Rachel:
Hi Kate, You are very brave to be launching a new business in the currrent economic climate. Are you working alone or is there a team of you? Have you had difficulties getting the financial backing you need?
Kate Ho:
Hi Ayo Yes, I have been incredibly active in networks for women in IT, but that wasn\\\'t always the case! I only started to see value of them around 3-4 years ago and being actively involved. Personally, I think the key to development in voluntary work. When you volunteer, you get opportunities and experiences that will have taken a lot more time than a paid position. For instance, I used to volunteer for the Scottish Womens Rugby Union, and I helped to write the development plan which got £66k lottery funding and managing 5 staff members in a sub-committee ... and I was only 20! Later on, in the same committee, we had to approve budgets and helped to manage the growth of the sport at a national level. I learned to work in a team, manage events, write development plans, lead communications for a national governing body. These are skills that no money can buy. In regards to using social networking for networking purposes, without giving too long winded an answer, I would say \\\"yes\\\"" I do think that Facebook/Twitter is useful.
Kate Ho:
Hi Rachel, Ah! So the issue of starting a business in the economic downturn is an interesting one. In fact, a recession is the best time to start a business! Costs are lower - people are cheaper (less jobs around), commodities are cheaper, desk space (on the whole) cheaper! It\\\'s the best time for entrepreneurs! Let me give you an example. I\\\'m trying to get two developers to work on my company with me, and since both of them are unemployed and still working for work - the persuasion is much easier than if they both knew they could find work easily! (It\\\'s a little weird logic, I know). But the implications are that: 1. You have to compete on price, and 2. If you don\\\'t compete on price, then you have to deliver something really valuable that your customers will have to part money for. The point is, you can\\\'t be mediocre, but that\\\'s fine by me :) My favourite advice was from Michael Clouser - one of the lecturers at Informatics in Edinburgh. He told us to spot the opportunities and \\\"follow the money\\\"". There have been BIG stimulus packages announced in the past year - follow where that money goes. In education
Helen:
Hi Kate It sounds like you are really busy. I love the idea of sharing blogging particularly as you meet up with your blogging chums to agree what will go in so it makes the activity social. I do think it can be very easy to disappear inside a computer and forget to invest in the outside world. It was also interesting hearing about how your writing skills have broadened and that you connected it to thinking about your audience. I am just starting my first forays into the world of social network sites so it is great to hear about other peoples experience - Can you tell me how the TWITTER example about the weather in London worked - were the replies from people who were following you and do you accept all followers?
Kaye:
Hi Kate I'm really interested in how you have improved your writing style and skills by blogging. I've not really considered it before, but it makes sense that you are now much better at thinking about and then writing for a specific target audience through the discipline of blogging. I've recently started a new role, where I have to write and edit copy both online and in publications. I would really like to improve my skill in this area. As a not-very-technical-minded blogging virgin, have you any suggestions for the easiest/best way of starting down the road? Thank-you.
Kate Ho:
Hi Helen, I completely agree re: danger of disappearing inside your computer! The best bit about having a blog, is being able to interact and talk/discuss with like-minded people (much like this!) Regarding the twitter example, so I used the #uksnow hashtag which lots of people were following at the time. So I got replies from people who weren't following me. I'm not sure whether you know what hashtags are, but for the benefit of non-tweeters, I'll just quickly explain them. Hashtags are text that you write in your tweets to identify them as being part of a bigger trend. E.g. #6nations, #microsoft, #hiring. They make them easier for you to identify pieces of information. Check out http://hashtags.org to see the top hashtags that people are using at the moment. I use Tweetdeck, which allows you to have multiple searches on either particular words or hashtags. For instance, at the moment, I have searches for edinburgh (where I live), Microsoft Surface (what I'm developing on), startupcafe (in case anyone tweets about it), mypolice (same), etc. I see all the tweets with those words so I add/reply to people. I also find interesting people to follow that way too!
Ruth Wilson (UKRC moderator):
Hi Kate, Last week I had the good fortune to go to a fascinating conference in Istanbul on equal opportunities. We had a great workshop - led by UKRC and the Open University - which looked at different aspects of women and computing. One of the speakers - Britta Schnizel of the University of Freiburg - had international stats showing that the percentage of women studying computer science is really low in North Europe. In some other parts of the world, eg many Arabic countries, women form over half the student body. It varies a bit across Europe. But in Germany for instance, only 12% of the computer science students are female, and it would be lower except that foreign female student and daughters of immigrants have a greater interest in the subject and so boost the numbers. One person in our workshop said that in the UK neither men nor women are coming forward to study the subject. Is that true? What do you think is going on?
Kate Ho:
Ruth, Yes, that is very true. The recruitment rate is lowering for both men and women. Oh dear, this is such a complex issue I don\'t know where to start! I had a word about this with the Schools Liaison officer here at Edin Uni, and the problem is really complex. (And did anyone else read the news story yesterday about under-privileged families not being able to break the glass ceiling into getting better jobs?) For girls in particular, it is partly because of the lack of role models (i.e. aspiration) and partly because there is a lack of information about what types of careers there are about computing at age 12-14. Kids are told to learn how to do spreadsheets or databases, with little emphasis on how they relate to later life and future careers. Interestingly enough, I was speaking to someone who worked on Women in IT initiatives in the U.S. and they said that because their university structures are much more flexible, that their efforts are concentrated at the university (college) level where if they can encourage more girls to do computing in their 1st/2nd year, they might switch to their majors to computer science. Over in the U.K., because we specialise much earlier, the efforts have to be concentrated at age 12-14 - i.e. before GCSEs. I would love to hear what was said at the conference about participation/recruitment rates. Will a report (or blog post) be available about it?
Ruth Wilson (UKRC moderator):
Hi Kate, You\'ve raised some really interesting points. I\'ve emailed a couple of the speakers to see if they can comment here. I\'m not sure right now what will happen re conference proceedings. I made some notes from Britta\'s presentation: There are more women studying computer science in Arabic countries. In New Delhi, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand women form around 50%. But decline is going on, eg S Korea, Mexico, Thailand, Singapore. Northern Europe – more men. But very large differences between countries. In Germany women are just 12% of computer science students. This is driven up in part by foreign female students and daughters of immigrants. Turkey in decline. Female quota in Arabic/Islamic countries is highest in the world. Turkey 23% Algeria 55% Jordan 50% Bahrain 68% Iran 75% females at state universities, 33% at private universities. Apparently the generally good inclusion levels in Arabic countries can be attributed to a strong tradition of good education for boys and girls, especially in urban areas, leading to good female role models in universities: staff and students. Girls believe they can and will get equal work which they see as satisfiying. And other factors. There is a need to handle such generalised statistics from diverse sources with care - in addition we cannot always be certain how \'computer science\' is defined as a subject. There may be variation in course content.
Honora Smith:
Hi Kate Well done for all you\'re doing - I can\'t imagine life will ever be boring for you! And a PhD too - I finished one last year and think that the P stands for persistence, in whatever field you\'re working. It will be a great achievement!
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