Motivation

Sharwari, a maker and a key person who drove the programEmbedded for Her A program that almost happened In the first half of 2016, one of the side projects that I was working on is ‘Embedded for Her’, in collaboration with two proactive and impactful organizations: Internet of Things Bangalore (IoTBLR) and WorkBench Projects. In brief, this was intended to be a program where women can gain the skill set to work on practical embedded systems in the course of a couple of months. This project didn’t see the light of the day (yet) and this post is intended to shed some light on how we failed. More specifically, our motivation in starting this program, the plan and structure of the program and our takeaways from the whole exercise. The website that we created for this embeddedforher.com is now a placeholder, to convey the idea that we had. In India, there is good gender diversity in the circuit and software branches in the Bachelor’s courses in engineering colleges. But this does not translate to proportionate women working with hardware and embedded systems, thus not pursuing their career in these fields. Needless to say the Makers community today faces gender disparity as it is primarily crowded by men. We feel the increase in gender diversity in this field is a good thing for everyone in the ecosystem of embedded systems related activities. Also, we want to spread the joy of embedded systems, where one can make inanimate pieces of silicon and plastic do one’s bidding, be it blinking lights or watering plants if need be. Based on these motivations the primary objectives that we wanted to achieve with this program was: Support women to develop the skill set in embedded systems and IoT Inspire and build interest of women in these technologies; and Build women’s confidence to continue working with these technologies. Program Plan Schedule Embedded for Her was designed to be a 10-week course in embedded systems every Saturday in Bengaluru, India. The program was scheduled to be during the summer holidays of colleges, which is usually the months of June, July and August. Targeted audience The targeted audience of Embedded for Her were women in circuit or software branches in colleges and women who had a basic background in any of these fields. We felt we didn’t have the resources to do a program to teach embedded systems from scratch, so the requirement of the background in either electronics or computer science. We expected to take in about 30–50 participants to make about 10 teams for the project work. In the interview process apart from the basic knowledge mentioned earlier, another important criterion would be the applicant’s interest in learning new things and participation in co-curricular activities. Program structure: Theory + Practice The two parts of the program were course work and project work. The first half of the program would primarily be course work, with the project work following up in the later half. The coursework would involve starting off the day with a refreshing demo of a simple and practical project from of the many on the internet, then a lecture with a demo on a particular topic and ending with a practical task based on the lecture. For the project work, teams of 3–5 would be formed who’ll have to go through the entire process of a project. This would include coming up an idea, including the specification of the end result, choosing the components and methodology, followed by the actual iteration of implementation and debugging/testing. Lecturers, guest speakers and mentors For the program, we had three kinds of roles for the people teaching embedded systems. Lecturers: They are responsible for the teaching the theory with demos during the coursework phase. Guest speakers: Speakers who give a session for an hour or two on a particular topic, be it a trending technology or their experience over the years. Mentors: During the course work phase mentors are the go-to people for any assistance during the hands-on practical task. In the project phase, each team would be assigned a mentor who will guide the team throughout the project. Collaborate, not compete We wanted the spirit of the program to be collaborative among the participants to achieve the objectives stated above better. During the team projects phase, the day would end with a stand-up session to disseminate the current status, bugs being faced and the progress made among all the teams. This to experience multiple projects running simultaneously and encourage inter-team collaboration. The only evaluation that the program does is deciding if a participant gets a piece of paper (aka a certificate) saying that the participant has successfully completed this program. There was quite a debate if this should be done, but at the end we felt its better to have it than not. The consensus was also that the participants must be told the message of ‘The proof is in the pudding’ or rather in this case the projects that are executed. Final sprint In the spirit of not making this program a competition, the final session would encompass the whole weekend, rather than a Saturday. This final sprint would aim to wrap the project up in a demonstrable manner. The program would culminate with a ‘Show & Tell’ event where the local start-ups and companies working with embedded systems would be invited. In this way, the participants can demonstrate the project that they have worked on and showcase their learning from the program. The best case scenario would be being hired as an employee or an intern in a company. Budget To encourage participation in the 10-week program we decided to keep the fees low, to be about 5000 ₹ (~75 $). This is definitely not enough to conduct a program at this scale, which required us to raise funds to make it happen. The overall budget for this program for 30–50 participants crossed to be a seven digit number (in ₹, more than 10k $). The majority of this would be the remuneration for the lecturers, guest speakers and mentors. Another significant cost would be to procure the development boards and other electronic devices needed for the hands-on session and project work. And a small amount was allocated for the little snacks and refreshments during the course of the program. We could do the website and host it on Github, saving costs there (apart from the little for the domain name). Since the targeted audience was quite a niche, the marketing could be done with little cost with our existing network of people. Falling flat We gave ourselves about 50 days for raising the funds using the reach and pull of the two organizations, IoTBLR and Workbench Projects involved in this program. We couldn’t achieve this even with sending the sponsorship proposal to about 30 companies and organizations. The organizations that we approached were in the area of semiconductors, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), test equipment, media, colleges, start-up accelerators and so on. Thus, we missed the boat of the summer holidays of the college students. Now we’ve paused to retrospect, get feedback and see how we can successfully execute a similar project in the future. We are still optimistic that with support from both private companies and public bodies like Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services (KBITS), we can make a similar program happen. Key Learnings Start organically The whole exercise for setting up this program felt like making an elaborate and ambitious business plan, then faltering to actually execute it. We were taking the causation approach, while the effectuation one would be better. Starting small, with the resources that one has and the collaborations that one can make is how to get rolling. Although planning is important, we did a bit too much of planning (and a bit of dreaming about it too). Maybe start off with a small group with one or two mentors, self-financed, borrowed equipment and a flexible course structure. More time for fund-raising 50 days is just not enough to raise lakhs of Rupees. If this was the plan, we had to start the process at least a few months in advance, if not more. Communicate carefully and accurately We know that this topic can be quite sensitive at times, especially depending on the audience and the medium of communication. While this required us to be diplomatic in our communication, we strived to not dilute or censor what we had to say. We needed to communicate our perspective and understanding of the problem that we were tackling and our approach in coming up with the program that we did. This enables us to be clear to people so that we can be criticized and given constructive feedback, which we can incorporate. ‘How can I sign up?’ After explaining the idea of the program and its end goals, we had quite a few women interested in joining. This has motivated up make sure a program of this kind happens in the near future. Thanks for reading the article. Please let us know what you felt about this whole exercise and how we can improve. And if you want to recreate something similar we’ll help in whatever way we can.