Education Is Quintessential To Liberty

Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.

--John F. Kennedy

Postively Impacting A Generation

Education by itself is not the end all be all. To positively impact your generation and environment you must have character and the ability to discern what is right and wrong for yourself.

--Nona O.

#LeadershipTuesdays--Leshell Hatley: Hello World. Hello Robot. Hello Me.

"The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child; it is whether we can afford not to."

--Marian Wright Edelman

http://www.upliftdc.org

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY  provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage and strengthen women leaders. The technology industry has been in the press a lot lately for its lack of diversity and its steps (or lack thereof) to increase the representation of women and minorities. I recently heard a statistics from Vann Jones that the industry will have 1.4 million new tech jobs in the next 10 years. He's one of the advocates bringing attention to the need for more diversity in the tech industry. Current forecasts suggest that the U.S. will only be able to supply 400K of these jobs.

Leshell Hatley, an engineer, educator, researcher, and entrepreneur based in the Washington, D.C. area, is preparing a diverse population of youth to be ready for the future jobs in technology. For more than ten years, she has been teaching children the "how to's" of technology. Leshell has developed unique programs that expose youth to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics, and Computer Science and she has documented best practices for how to teach technology to African American youth.

Through her non-profit foundation, Uplift, Inc. and as a teacher in public and private schools, Leshell teaches K-12 students how to create mobile apps, build robots, and design gaming systems. Earlier this year she spoke to an audience in the Nation's Capital on the power of creativity in using programming and robots in education. Her work has been recognized by companies like Microsoft, the MacArthur Foundation, and Google.

Leshell is currently finishing up her PhD (2016) in Learning Technologies Design Research at George Mason University (Virginia). She is also on the staff of Howard University (Washington, D.C.) managing a National Science Foundation grant that supports women STEM faculty members.

To find out more about how Leshell is preparing today's youth for tomorrow's opportunities in technology and science, see below. For more information on Leadership Tuesdays or WOMEN AT LIBERTY, click here.

--Nona O., Founder, womenatliberty.com

Bridging The Gap...Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned

The right to a quality education is, I believe, the perfect path to bridge the gap between different cultures and to reconcile various civilizations. Without such a right, the values of liberty, justice and equality will have no meaning. Ignorance is by far the biggest danger and threat to humankind.

--Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned

Setting Our Priorities...Bell Hooks

“When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by unrelenting hedonistic desire for material objects that are not needed for survival, or essential to well-being, we will not be talking about Ebonics. We will be out in the streets demanding that the public schools have enough teachers so that all kids, cross color, can read and write in standard English and in Spanish too.”

--Bell Hooks, Black Genius: African-American Solutions To African-American Problems

Educating The Mind And Heart...Aristotle

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."  

--Aristotle