Inclusive Pathways Into Tech & Entrepreneurship
The Women in Tech Initiative at UC program aims to create inclusive pathways for tech entrepreneurship. One way that we do that is by supporting classes through the UC Berkeley Decal Program. The DeCal Program is an aggregate of student-run courses where students create and facilitate their own classes on a variety of subjects, many of which are not addressed in the traditional curriculum.
Below is a previous DeCal that we supported.
Start Date:
September 5th
Weekly Meetings:
Thursdays 5-7pm
Location:
Sutarjda Dai Hall
Room 242
Inclusive Pathways into Tech and Entrepreneurship is for students who want to get hands-on experience in creating a project that advances diversity in tech. This course engages in an innovative approach to teaching by bringing together students from tech and non-tech majors to learn what kind of diverse perspectives they need on their team to solve the world’s problems.
Students from arts, humanities, and social science disciplines will learn new pathways into technology careers where they can use their skills to enter unexpected fields and or a path to entrepreneurship. They will learn about resources like the Jacobs Institute Maker Space where they can develop a product prototype for a “big idea”. The course provides space to collaboratively critique one another on their business pitch. This course uses innovative pedagogy as a student-centered learning, student facilitated course that brings students across campus majors and diverse life experiences to contribute to discussion-based learning rather than a single-perspective lecture.
The course also leverages weekly guest speakers who are practitioners from diverse sectors of tech fields such as gaming design and medical technology who work finding sociological solutions using technology. Through guest speakers, students can learn about tech companies they may not know about, positions they may not know are career opportunities, network with the speakers and potentially get feedback on their big idea.
The course capstone project helps students in each of their unique pathways. Students going the entrepreneurship route will be able to pitch and prototype their idea or to prepare a Big Ideas submission, students going into a research pathway will have a research proposal, students interested in social justice might propose a convening or pilot an intervention to improve inclusion, or students can propose what a part 2 of a DeCal class would look like to help scale the course across campus and future semesters.
The course meets Thursdays starting September 5th from 5-7pm in Sutarjda Dai Hall. This is a 2 unit course.
Due to class enrollment reaching max capacity, course enrollment for Fall 2019 is now closed. For questions, please contact Nicole Cotton at ncotton@berkeley.edu
Syllabus
- Desire hands-on applied learning in the tech sector
- Students from social science field who want to learn how they can enter tech fields
- Want to have a safe place on campus to share their ideas in building inclusive spaces in
- Silicon Valley and STEM fieldsWant to learn more about how technology can help solve sociological issues
- Want to see underrepresented minorities in leadership positions
- Learn from practitioners in the field
- Leave the class with a project they can add to their professional portfolio
- Identify non-traditional pathways into tech
- Articulate strategies for fostering inclusive spaces in STEM environments
- Learn how to execute a project or big idea
- Understand how they can take their project or big idea to the next level
- Be able to critique others on their ideas and projects
- Think more broadly about who they need “on their team” in order to execute a project
- Network with a diverse array of guest speakers
Course Schedule (subject to change)
| Week 1 | Aug 27 | Course Enrollment—Students not required to come |
| Week 2 | Sep 5 | Early Internet Studies/Gaming |
| Week 3 | Sep 12 | Digital Divide/Segregated online spaces |
| Week 4 | Sep 19 | Humanities & Social Science Engagement with Tech |
| Week 5 | Sep 26 | The Corporate World |
| Week 6 | Oct 3 | Health Tech & Assistive Tech |
| Week 7 | Oct 10 | Algorithmic Oppression |
| Week 8 | Oct 17 | Undocumented Immigrants/Refugees |
| Week 9 | Oct 24 | Indigenous Nations Building Tech |
| Week 10 | Oct 31 | Engineering Peace |
| Week 11 | Nov 7 | Exponential tech – IoT |
| Week 12 | Nov 14 | Activism & Ethical Questions |
| Week 13 | Nov 21 | Pitching Ideas, Raising Capital, Entrepreneurship |
| Week 14 | Nov 28 | NO CLASS—THANKSGIVING |
| Week 15 | Dec 5 | FINAL Presentations |
| RRR Week | Dec 12 | RRR week |
| Finals | Dec 19 | Finals Week—No finals |