Joining Hackergal!
“By learning to create technology, girls learn to speak up.”
— Regina Agyare
Hey! My name is Eila Farnood and I’m currently a grade 9 student at the University of Toronto Schools. For the majority of my school year, it was impossible to find time for me to adopt a hobby. However, with our current quarantine situation, I’ve recently started to get into baking! Some of my most prized creations were pecan butter tarts, an orange meringue pie, and a key lime cake. If I’m being honest, considering how many new recipes I’ve been trying out, it’s a miracle that I haven’t completely bombed a recipe yet!
Staying more on-topic, I’m absolutely in love with tech. In terms of my experiences with Hackergal, I’ve participated in their events throughout the past three years. Considering how long I’ve been involved with the organization, I’m really excited about being part of the Ambassador Program! Personally, I know just how much Hackergal can impact young girls, so I cannot wait to be able to contribute to the amazing community.
My experience with STEM is a bit different from most girls since, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with STEM-related subjects. I was always so excited about science projects and really enjoyed participating in math contests. However, I only really had my first experience with technology in grade 3, when I stumbled upon Khan Academy’s JavaScript course. At the time I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I remember being absolutely obsessed with the idea of being able to create my own program simply by typing out words on the screen. I think it would blow “younger-me”s mind if she knew that I was able to build my own decentralized application on the blockchain. Heck, I barely even knew any exponential technology back then—unless we’re counting the internet!
Though my journey with technology was really smooth, one thing I regret is never having a group of people that I could build and learn things with. For the majority of my learning experience, I could only look to my parents or my sister for help. And, while they were definitely really great at supporting as much as possible, I realize now that I never got the opportunity to meet people my age who were just as excited and interested in these subjects as me. I think another thing I’ve noticed as I look back, is that I never really got to see women around me within the tech sector. I knew that there were women in STEM areas, but whenever I was excited about a new company, I found I would always see a man standing as the CEO.
By joining the Hackergal Ambassadors, I’m hoping that more and more girls are able to get support from not only their teachers and family members, but people their own age as well. Really strong and supportive friendships can be built by growing together, so by connecting as many passionate girls as possible through the Hackergal community, I hope that they will be able to experience a much more collaborative exploration into technology. While I was able to get things done by myself, I can only imagine how much more excited I would be about building, doing, and making things if I had met more girls my age who shared my interests.
On the topic of being social, my advice for girls who have just started to get into tech, or just young girls, in general, is to learn to ask for help. I’m personally still struggling with this, but I think that being able to receive help from others, or finding a mentor can help you so much with literally anything that you want to achieve.
Lastly, stay curious, continue to explore things, and I hope that I see you at a Hackergal event sometime in the future!
