The Good Ole Days of the Future

By: Susan Warner, Vice President, Community Engagement, Mastercard, & Founder, Girls4Tech

As we celebrate 10 years of Mastercard’s signature STEM education program Girls4Tech?, I’m reminded of how far technology has come. Do you remember the good ole days of the steam engine? Neither do I. Nor was I around for the advent of the night shift when factories used lights for the first time. But I do remember my first computer programming course (I barely passed) and the mass production of personal computers in the 1980s. These are examples of the first, second and third Industrial Revolutions. Today we’re in the fourth – the convergence of technology and the rise of data – and some argue we’re already in a fifth – where people and smart machines work harmoniously together to solve big problems. ?

With each revolution, there is excitement and yes, there’s anxiety. In our Girls4Tech Cyber & AI curriculum, we share a media headline about an invention that will make people lazy. They are always surprised to learn that the headline was about a phone – no, not a smart phone, but Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 phone. At the end of the program, we ask them to write the headlines for tomorrow. The girls almost always come up with a headline that advances society: ‘AI cures cancer.’ ‘Machine learning eliminates pollution.’ ‘New technologies solve world hunger.’?

The rate of technological change is faster than it’s ever been. Remember that it took two million years for humans to wrangle fire and use it for cooking. Nearly a century for computers to go from the size of buildings, then rooms to being held in the palm of your hand. And today, it takes less than a blink of an eye to purchase a rug in Turkey from a payment card issued in Toledo. ?

During a recent town hall at Mastercard, one of our board members said that it’s possible that the speed of change will never be this slow again. And that we will look back at 2024 and remember the good ole days. Shamina Singh agrees. As president and founder of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, Shamina recently said “As leaders in data, we need to move fast and now, not tomorrow.” She added, “We have the opportunity to collaborate, forge partnerships for the greater good, create impact and lead the world through the next wave of technological innovation.”

Indeed, partnerships are key. Beyond Girls4Tech, we also collaborate with like-minded organizations to share learnings and drive awareness around gender equity and inclusion. For example, our work with Goals House has brought together diverse stakeholders across the world, sparking dialogue and action.? The challenges and opportunities that arise from new technological revolutions can only be faced and harnessed by working together.

To me, it’s more critical than ever to have equal representation at the table where the next great innovations will take place.?And sparking that STEM interest still needs to begin in the early years. When Eva Mudgal participated in our program in Gurgaon, India in 2015, she was in 8th grade. Years later, when we hired her for an internship in Networks & Security in our Toronto office, she told me that the Girls4Tech experience was so instrumental that the answer of which field she should focus on was clear— she chose Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Eva still credits the program for playing a big part in finalizing her decision. Today she is employed at Scotiabank as a Programmer Analyst. She says, “I don't see myself deviating from the tech field because there is so much more to learn—this is a field where you always use your logical reasoning, and it’s fun for me!”

What I have learned so far is this – with change, with industrial revolution, comes opportunity – for men and women alike! With ten years under our belt and nearly 7 million girls reached in 65 countries, our goal for Girls4Tech has never changed. We want to reach the girl who is considering dropping out of STEM subjects, to show that it takes all kinds of skills to pursue a STEM career, and to create that spark to keep going, to stay in that class. To join companies and technology teams that create the next innovation.

This desire for a more sustainable and equitable future is contagious, and being part of a global community such as Goals House allows us to work with stakeholders across all industries to push for opportunities in technology for women and girls across the world. I always tell our girls that the technologists of today created the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, but it’s our Girls4Tech participants – our future problem solvers – who will be the ones to take it to the next level – to cure cancer, to solve pollution, to end world hunger. And I, for one, can’t wait!?

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