Reblogged from The Nerdy Paige
So it’s finally here, launch day. Okay, truth be told we started our crowdfunding campaign late Saturday night just to be sure there weren’t any gremlins in the system. I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the results so far, but I know in situations like this it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. So you might be asking yourself: What is all this Brave New Girls jazz about? Well, Mary Fan, an awesome sci-fi author seriously go check out her stuff, and I were chatting on Facebook late on a Friday night and after a few beers I suggested we write a story about girls and bots together. Both of us are life long science fiction fans and we both are known to read a YA book or three, but there are few books with girls who happen to smart and tech savvy and the main character. Usually, if you’re a smart girl in fiction you’re relegated to the bumbling second fiddle. So we toyed around with ideas and we started thinking about compiling an anthology and maybe giving the proceeds to a charity to get a girl through engineering school. See this is what happens when you drink and Facebook, people. |
So why all the fuss? Well, I’m an uber nerd and proud of it. I have degrees in physics and engineering and have proudly worked as an engineer for the past 15 years. But there were very few women in my college classes and when I went to work it was about ten years before I worked with another female engineer. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve maybe worked alongside maybe three female engineers in my professional career. Personally, I don’t think this acceptable. Engineering and tech jobs are set to go nowhere but up in the future but the field is comprised of maybe 14% female engineers. In this day in age when we talk about pay parity, we overlook the fact that women aren’t getting the degrees that get the jobs. See some of the startling statistics below.
I have plenty of ideas of why girls don’t enter into the engineering and tech fields and maybe that’s a blog for a different day. But the numbers don’t lie, girls don’t see themselves as being future innovators. However, women actually buy more tech than men (iPhones, iPads, Fitbit, etc.) so wouldn’t it make sense that women design tech items for women? This is why women are so sought after in the tech world, but yet we still see numbers like in our statistics cards. So maybe just maybe if we write fiction with girls as innovators, geniuses, programmers, and tinkerers then this might inspire a girl or two out there to consider a career in tech. I know it might sound silly, but back in the early 90′s when I was considering my future career field episodes of X-files and Star Trek: TNG were actually an inspiration to me. These shows had women who were smart and strong and weren’t afraid of tech. That’s what I wanted to be. So a story can have the potential to be quite powerful. Hey, we might inspire the next Stephanie Kwolek (look it up).
If you’re interested in helping us that’s great! We’re running an Indiegogo campaign for the next 43 days. We hope to collect enough money to defray publishing costs of this book. Who knows, we might get enough interest to make this an annual thing. But one step at a time, we need help from people like you. We want to hear your stories! We want to see your illustrations go here if you’re interested in submitting a story or art. We also need financial support. To go straight to our Indiegogo campaign click here or click the first image above.
Sure, it might not be the key to world peace or ending world hunger, but I think it’s a step in the right direction to making our world a better place to live. Let me know what you think drop me some comments or share via your favorite social media site. Anything you can do to help would be great.
-Paige
If you’re interested in helping us that’s great! We’re running an Indiegogo campaign for the next 43 days. We hope to collect enough money to defray publishing costs of this book. Who knows, we might get enough interest to make this an annual thing. But one step at a time, we need help from people like you. We want to hear your stories! We want to see your illustrations go here if you’re interested in submitting a story or art. We also need financial support. To go straight to our Indiegogo campaign click here or click the first image above.
Sure, it might not be the key to world peace or ending world hunger, but I think it’s a step in the right direction to making our world a better place to live. Let me know what you think drop me some comments or share via your favorite social media site. Anything you can do to help would be great.
-Paige