Megan Smith Quotes
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I went to an inner-city school in Buffalo. We had no money. But our teachers believed in hands-on active learning - there was a mandatory science fair, which was critical.
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There are several places in Vietnam where they're teaching computer science from second grade in class, so they don't have a gender divide because everybody is expected to program.
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What was so special about the Mac, we all know, was the graphical computer interface.
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It's very difficult to solve a lot of problems from the top down.
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I have been able to attend many technology conferences around the world over the years, including some of the largest, like Google I/O, Microsoft's Developer Conference, Apple's WorldWide Developers Conference, Oracle World, Le Web, and more.
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I was lucky that science fair was mandatory at my high school in inner-city Buffalo.
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I'm on the MIT board, and a lot of our buildings now have daycare centers; it's becoming a standard.
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I actually think that working in the federal government, or state or local, is one of the most significant things that a technical person can do.
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We very much use a prototyping model, play with ideas, and then get stuff started that way, which is how the greatest projects get started.
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The most important thing is, we really want to make sure the American people are able to get to any Web site they'd like to get to.
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Take everything you know. Take your whole selves. Be inclusive. Be open. Make history in the infinite ways that your heart takes you.
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The more people we can attract to science and technology - men, women, everybody - the more economic opportunity we have as a nation.
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I think open source is an evolutionary idea for humanity, this idea of transparency. It played out for us in the technology world, but it also played out with the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission and Wikipedia.
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We culturally decided, as the personal computer came in, that it was for the boys.
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It's much easier to fail when you're in the pilot, early stage, when it's less expensive and you're exploring than when you're way out the door and you've spent all this money. Industry is smart: structured to have skunkworks and pilot phases.
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Science class is traditionally taught as science history class - you learn all these facts that someone else discovered, which you need to know, but that's not really an inspiring way to learn science.
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There are 2 to 3 million women programmers in the world. We need to see them more.
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We have two boys, and one of our kids is much more interested in history and stories, so if you want him to do some calculations about lenses, you would start talking to him about Galileo... Then he would be into the lenses, but if you just start talking to him about lenses, he might not stay with you.
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Founded in 1994 by the Anita Borg Institute and growing every year, the Grace Hopper Celebration is bringing needed network connections, skill building, and visibility for women computer scientists who work at all levels of our industry.
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We need to have making, including computer science, shop, etc. as part of the core curriculum from the beginning, not just an optional afterschool thing. Things like First Robotics and all of those great programs need to become mainstream.
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Americans really expect to interact with our government digitally.
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There's this fabulous innovation ship called Unreasonable at Sea, where I'm a mentor. One of the companies there was called Protei, and they're an open hardware ocean exploration and monitoring idea.
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For those of you who are underrepresented in technology, know that you've always been here. Look in photos and see yourself reflecting back.
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Code is just a list of instructions. There are countries that are teaching it as part of the core curriculum. Having some experience in those early years is very important.