About #GirlsAndTech

At school this year, a parent asked my 7 year old daughter what she wanted to be when she is a grown up.

-"A doctor" she said.

-"A nurse your mean", asked the parent.

-"No, a doctor" she said again politely.

With my best half, we have been discussing these tough questions of education in the 21th century almost every night for the past 10 years.

Both born in the south of France, we have educated ourselves up to great schools and positions at very large Corporate companies. Made our way through, by studying and working hard, adapting to new social codes to reach our goals. Something we are definitely proud of.

Our views on education could be summarized as a mix of the American Dream, the French culture and spirit, the Asian well being philosophy, Montessori approach, Judeo-Christian values, Secular scientific beliefs- - What a mix !

What we aim for, for our 3 children, is essentially to enable them to be happy - Happy implying knowing themselves, their emotions, their potential; Have strong self-confidence, yet humility as well as we Humans still know little after all; Have a good intent on how to use their potential - We don't wish for Oppenheimers; Have an independent mind with the ability to judge what people say, even us their parents, whom they want to surround themselves with - The right influences and energies.

We also aim very pragmatically at helping them acquire what we consider fundamental skills: Curiosity (evergreen ability to learn), foreign languages and not only English, Computer code, Communication and collaboration skills.

So indeed, we do lead a #GEEKFAMILY life - Spending hours on week-ends to open our children's curiosity to physics, biology, English, Spanish, code along with learning how to swim, dance, draw, sing, ride a bike, ski and other things.

I tend to value code a lot, for sure. I have a very strong awareness of what's coming - I started with code.org to to lay the fundamentals, then moved on to Scratch and now my 7 year old daughter is learning JavaScript on Khan Academy. #ProudDad

I have experienced teaching code in schools and noticed girls attended much less spontaneously than boys, seconded by their parents who actually think code is meant for boys. That's actually even how I started teaching code to my own daughter, to give her girl friends a motivation to join, remove a blocker.

My top learnings from this experience is that confidence is what matters the most. Confidence is your very own judgement - The very ability to reinvent your own rules when necessary, to adapt.

Of course helping a little girl grow her intelligence is about creating an environment where curiosity, independence, resilience are promoted as core education values.

Educating a child to the pursuit of happiness of self and others is also very core.

Yet confidence is the one thing that a father and a mother should emphasize on, especially for girls.

There is no secret sauce. There is absolutely nothing unique about what we intend to do and try out. We believe - like many other parents - that education is a very important thing and that our current model needs to be reinvented, or at least augmented.

 A few things that I consider very useful to help your girl:

·       Curiosity - Opening your daugther's mind to sciences, arts and langages in a fun way - It does not need to be a museum - Just take a moment to help her copy a drawing from Da Vinci or whomever her favorite painter is - It can also be about doing scientific experiments you can get inspiration from the web - Click here for examples - Curiosity does fuel intelligence and additional pleasure to learn. It actually gives confidence to a certain extent, yet it is not enough

·       Courage - We tell our daughters to repeat "I'm smart, I'm strong, I'm beautiful, I'm (their names), etc." every day - My 7 year old has seen her role model mom give speeches in front of large audiences and now wants to try it out herself - I will help her prepare a speech on an invention she has been thinking about in front of @mailinblack teams when she is ready - She is half excited and half scared about this but I believe raising your own self through courage gives long lasting confidence

·       Beauty - It matters a lot for a young girl to hear she is beautiful - Intelligence should not be overvalued or at least the feeling of being pretty should not be undermined, as it gives confidence as well - As usual it's all a matter of balance and not overstressing one aspect of their selves, but helping them be a whole person

·       Independence - Now that's a tough one I admit - Our children are raised with the right to challenge whatever we say if they do not feel it is legitimate and grounded in proven truth. We fully give them this right. Some days it can be tiresome for sure. And don't misread me here, we are not trying to create anarchists. Just free-minded people with a rational ability to figure out what is a lie from what is truth, a new from a fake news. People who will not comply to any authority and rules they do not feel legitimate. In an era where consciousness is being hacked by Cambridge Analytica to influence voters - one huge step beyond consumerism - I believe #consciousness should be considered as a fundamental Human Right

Tech - With cloud-based business, fueled with AI - will be at the very center of next generation labor market. It will also pervade our products to a point where meditation, among other mindfulness techniques, will become a very useful way to take back control over your own mind.

Girls raised today with curiosity, courage, independance - and concretely to languages, coding, public presentation and collaboration - will have very strong chances to raise - if they want to - as the next generation leaders.

This applies of course to our boys as well - But I know for a fact that it will come in a easier way for them.

What do you think?

Please share your opinions in comments - I'd love to know what you have learned from your own experience

Thomas