Her Dream Career - Supporting Gender Equity in Technology & Media Careers
This innovation also has a Project Page where you can read more about its latest progress.
Go to Project: Her Dream Career- supporting gender equity in technology & media .
Her Dream Career is a program to inspire girls to pursue in-demand careers in technology, while introducing them to positive female role models. It's Khan Academy for girls with female role models.
About You
About You
About Your Organization
Organization Name
HER Ideas in Motion
Organization Website
Organization Country
United States, OH, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County
Country where this project is creating social impact
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
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Innovation
Name Your Entry
Her Dream Career - Supporting Gender Equity in Technology & Media Careers
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Idea (you're poised to launch)
How long have you been in operation?
Still in idea phase, but looking to launch soon
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
HERDREAMCAREER.COM aims to close the gender gap in technology and media arts jobs by providing girls everywhere free access to professional female mentors and training in web, film, and gaming careers. By 2018, there will be 1.4 million good paying computer science-related job openings in the U.S., yet less than 14% of computer science degrees are awarded to women. Likewise, only 25% of the behind-the-scenes jobs in the film industry are filled by women. There is a need to inspire girls with female role models to demonstrate the viability and access to these jobs for women.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
HERDREAMCAREER.COM is a free, self-paced website showcasing women professionals teaching girls lessons in web, film, and game-making in a fun, creative way that appeals to young girls. The women mentors will introduce technical, design and production concepts applied to topics young girls around the world can relate to, for example, programming HTML in web design is like building a hamburger sandwich or set design in filmmaking is like building your world. The whimsical themes allow girls to easily connect with the concepts, the girls self-identify with the women as role models in these fields and technical, design and production concepts are introduced in the lesson and tested in the online tutorial.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
HERDREAMCAREER.COM allows girls to learn core concepts in web, film, and gaming from professional women who work in these fields. Only 25% of the computer and behind-the-scene jobs in computer science and filmmaking are held by women, so most girls don't have access to female role models that work in these fields. We believe that showcasing women professionals who work in these careers, modeling core concepts in fun, appealing way, will inspire girls to pursue classes and careers in technology and media arts. A girl who visits HERDREAMCAREER.COM will watch a tutorial featuring a female professional teaching a mini-lesson in web, film, or gaming. The girl watches the lesson, takes an online quiz based on the lesson and earns a badge for that lesson, which they can then share with their friends through social media. Targeted at girls age 11- to 14-year-old, HERDREAMCAREER.COM allows girls an opportunity to earn badges in web, film, and gaming concepts, while learning from female role models who work in that field. We believe a girl who has met a female mentor and earned a badge on HERDREAMCAREER.COM will be more likely to take a web, film, or gaming class in high school or college, and in turn, be more likely to pursue these careers in the future.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
Their are several private and public entities, like HER Ideas in Motion, Girls Who Code, REEL Girls or Girls Learning Code, who provide summer camps or workshops to girls in these fields, yet they do not have a dedicated curriculum for their classes. There are other career focused programs, like Dot Diva, who introduce careers to high school girls interested in STEM careers, yet they do not have many on-the-job examples of what women do in these fields. We believe HERDREAMCAREER.COM will become a resource for all these entities looking to teach girls and inspire them in these careers.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What solution(s) does your initiative address to better the lives of girls and women by leveraging technology? (select all applicable)
Access to technology, Access to education/training, Access to economic opportunity.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
For the past 3 years, HER Ideas in Motion, the non-profit behind HERDREAMCAREER.COM has taught over 120 girls in our workshops and classes, and we believe HERDREAMCAREER.COM will have a much broader reach by being free and accessible online. Teacher/parent resources available on HERDREAMCAREER.COM make the program available to any program teaching girls in technology and media arts around the world.
What is your projected impact over the next 1-3 years?
We believe HERDREAMCAREER.COM has the ability to reach 100 after school STEM programs and teach 10,000 girls over the next three years.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Lauch HERDREAMCAREER.COM
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Produce website with tutorial application for students to earn badges for completed lessons online
Task 2
Produce 6 videos featuring female professionals teaching girls
Task 3
Register HERDREAMCAREER.COM as a non-profit to sustain it as a free website for girls everywhere
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Market HERDREAMCAREER.COM to the world
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Produce teacher/ parent resources and lesson plans around herdreamcareer.com
Task 2
Market to public and private entities teaching girls in technology and media arts
Task 3
Build and foster a girl community online to use HERDREAMCAREER.COM and continue to pursue careers in technology and media arts
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
At HER Ideas in Motion, we have been holding workshops and classes to mentor girls. Each time, we've experienced the lack of curriculum available for these camps and resources. Also, while girls like meeting the women teaching the class, we lost them when we tried to introduce code or concepts they had no familiarity with. We realized by doing these programs that we needed tools for our classrooms that relate to their lives. If girls are interested in avatars in games, then we're going to teach them the principles of programming the avatars, not just playing games. If girls are interested in looking at shoes and fashion online, then we are going to teach them what they can do to display there shoes online, using User Experience principles of web design. With female role models and universal girl-friendly interests, girls will enjoy and become inspired to take classes and pursue careers in web, film, and game making, just like the role models on HERDREAMCAREER.COM.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
We've partnered with individual developers in Cleveland, Ohio to develop the website in a "GiveCamp" capacity. We've partnered with professional women web developers, designers, programmers, and filmmakers internationally to donate their time to star in the videos. Bridge Interactive has donated production resources to produce 6 videos. We have applied to the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center at Case Western Reserve University to offset the legal costs of registering HERDREAMCAREER.COM and its assets under a non-profit status.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
We need an investment of $1,500 to pay the hosting and legal fee submission for HERDREAMCAREER.COM. We need $1,500 investment to buy the stock animation, sound, and art to support the production of the videos. We need a $6,000 investment to buy online ads and print teacher and parent resources to market the program. We need mentorship, networking, and assistance to make the program a success.
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| promo.png | 1.22 MB |
| herdreamcareer.jpg | 971.49 KB |
 | 45 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 46 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 48 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 48 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 48 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth updated this Competition Entry. |
| 48 weeks ago Maya Lindenmuth submitted this idea. |
