Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #439 Girls & Tech: an Interview With Dr Catherine Ball

Transcript

#439 Girls & Tech: an Interview With Dr Catherine Ball · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers Now good Day. It's
0:11
Speaker 1: doctor Justin Coulson.
0:12
Speaker 2: Every Wednesday, I get to have a conversation with somebody
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Speaker 2: really interesting about stuff that applies to what we're supposed
0:18
Speaker 2: to be doing as parents so that we can help
0:20
Speaker 2: our kids to thrive and flourish. Kylie doesn't join me
0:23
Speaker 2: for these interviews, but today I have somebody who can
0:27
Speaker 2: amply fill her space with some incredible insights and ideas
0:32
Speaker 2: today speaking with doctor Catherine Ball. Katherine is a scientific futurist.
0:37
Speaker 2: She's a tech influencer. Katherine and I actually shared the
0:41
Speaker 2: ted stage at ted ex Melbourne about five years ago.
0:45
Speaker 2: Katherine is a drone expert and an associate professor, among
0:50
Speaker 2: a million other things. Oh and a mum to two
0:52
Speaker 2: kids aged four and two. Doctor Catherine Ball, thanks for
0:54
Speaker 2: joining me on the Happy Families podcast today.
0:57
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. How are you going?
0:58
Speaker 1: Yeah? Super and excited to be able to spend some
1:01
Speaker 1: time chatting with you again. Catherine.
1:04
Speaker 2: The central question of this podcast really is girls and
1:08
Speaker 2: stem This is your area of expertise and I know
1:12
Speaker 2: there are going to be some people who listening to
1:13
Speaker 2: this conversation going, this is not the typical Happy Families podcast,
1:16
Speaker 2: This is not where we normally play. These are not
1:18
Speaker 2: the typical things that we talk about. But I would
1:21
Speaker 2: imagine that many people will be going, what does it
1:24
Speaker 2: matter whether it's boys or girls who are doing the
1:26
Speaker 2: science and the tech and the engineering and the mats.
1:28
Speaker 2: Who really cares? As long as someone's doing it, as
1:29
Speaker 2: long as we can get our trains to work, our
1:32
Speaker 2: bridges to be built, our astronauts to fly, our planes
1:34
Speaker 2: to stay up in the sky. Does it really matter
1:36
Speaker 2: if it's male or female? What's the big deal with
1:38
Speaker 2: girls and stem? Why are our schools making such a
1:40
Speaker 2: big deal about it? Why are their businesses out there
1:41
Speaker 2: who are profiting from it?
1:43
Speaker 1: Does it really matter? Can you respond to those.
1:46
Speaker 2: People who might be asking those that kind of a question,
1:49
Speaker 2: and they're asking it sincerely, It's not like there's any
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Speaker 2: sort of sexist motive behind it.
1:53
Speaker 1: Does it actually matter? Why the big deal?
1:54
Speaker 3: Well, I would suggest this's probably an unconscious or subconscious
1:57
Speaker 3: sexism that's basically been cold fed to everybody by drip
2:01
Speaker 3: method called the patriarchy that we've been living in for
2:03
Speaker 3: the last few thousand years. So I don't know if
2:06
Speaker 3: you've ever done the Harvard am I sexist test. As
2:09
Speaker 3: a father of six girls, I think you would find
2:11
Speaker 3: it in enlightning, because as the raging feminist and egalitarian
2:14
Speaker 3: person that I am, even I slipped up to the
2:17
Speaker 3: point where I saw women at home and men at work,
2:19
Speaker 3: and I was very desperately upset, and I called my
2:21
Speaker 3: mum and I was like, how is this? This does
2:23
Speaker 3: not reflect the things that I care about, how I act,
2:26
Speaker 3: how I work, how I live, how I play. And
2:28
Speaker 3: she said, Catherine, what do you think you've been brought
2:29
Speaker 3: up in? You're having to undo all of that stuff
2:31
Speaker 3: of not seeing women on the television, just seeing women
2:33
Speaker 3: as sex objects, just seeing token women, not seeing women speak,
2:36
Speaker 3: not seeing women speak to each other about something other
2:38
Speaker 3: than a man, all of those things that we've been imbibing.
2:40
Speaker 3: So if someone said to me, why is the bother
2:42
Speaker 3: of why do we care about gender equality? What on
2:44
Speaker 3: earth should we care? Why on earth should we care
2:46
Speaker 3: about it? Well, part of me would like to say,
2:48
Speaker 3: would you like to find a solution to climate change?
2:50
Speaker 3: Would you like to feed the next billion people that
2:53
Speaker 3: are going to be on this planet. Would you like
2:54
Speaker 3: to have a fair and equitable political world which doesn't
2:59
Speaker 3: need a civil water, then actually put gender diversity into
3:02
Speaker 3: our politicians representing us. Like would you want to if
3:06
Speaker 3: I flip the coin, if I said to you right now,
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Speaker 3: I'm going to force this, so you are ten percent
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Speaker 3: men working in these jobs and ninety percent women in
3:13
Speaker 3: these jobs. How would that feel as a world to
3:15
Speaker 3: you if you were not represented? And gender is only
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Speaker 3: one of the levers around representation. Gender you'd like to
3:22
Speaker 3: think is probably one of the most obvious and easiest
3:24
Speaker 3: levers which we could switch. But even now, looking at
3:27
Speaker 3: the gaping jaws of defeat graph that I refer to
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Speaker 3: in my ted talk, it's going to take us two
3:31
Speaker 3: hundred years to get gender equality in the way that
3:33
Speaker 3: we deserve to have it. We deserve to have a
3:37
Speaker 3: society that is based in technology, in medicine, in politics,
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Speaker 3: in economics, in finance, in you know, international development and
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Speaker 3: aid work that represents every single drop of intellectual capability
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Speaker 3: in this country. And unless you have gender equality, you
3:53
Speaker 3: are fishing from a half pool. And there's no way
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Speaker 3: that I would suggest it's logical for anyone to not
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Speaker 3: recoes the value of every single brain being around the
4:03
Speaker 3: table when it comes to gnarly and difficult decisions. If
4:06
Speaker 3: I was to put that in a nutshell, I would say,
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Speaker 3: if you are even thinking that there's a reason why
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Speaker 3: we don't need girls in stem or we don't want
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Speaker 3: gender equality, then you need to check yourself because you
4:16
Speaker 3: are sexist and you do not recognize the state of
4:20
Speaker 3: the world. You do not recognize the levels of family
4:23
Speaker 3: and domestic violence that are directly caused by lack of respect,
4:27
Speaker 3: which starts with a lack of representation and respect which
4:30
Speaker 3: comes from where you know, it comes from generations and generations,
4:33
Speaker 3: or it comes from the society around us. If we
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Speaker 3: had better gender representation across the board in Australia, we
4:39
Speaker 3: would have a happier, healthier, more economically successful society. And
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Speaker 3: I can't see a single argument against that that I
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Speaker 3: would pass the pub test with.
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Speaker 2: I think that the best way that we can utilize
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Speaker 2: your incredible brain in this conversation is to just talk
4:55
Speaker 2: about what parents of girls specifically, but kids generally need
5:00
Speaker 2: to hear when it comes to helping their kids to
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Speaker 2: find that thing and maybe even to move into those
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Speaker 2: stem areas where let's face it, Australia could probably do
5:09
Speaker 2: a little bit better. We're looking for more opportunities here.
5:12
Speaker 2: There's a future out there that too many Australian brains
5:15
Speaker 2: are not taking part in when they need to. How
5:19
Speaker 2: do we move our kids in that direction as long
5:21
Speaker 2: as they've got the slightest proclivity.
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Speaker 3: Well, if people want to follow up with me and
5:24
Speaker 3: my social media, I've got lots of further information on that.
5:27
Speaker 3: I know we don't have time to talk about all
5:29
Speaker 3: of it today. My one big ask is this, there
5:31
Speaker 3: are two facts you need to keep in your mind
5:33
Speaker 3: when you think about the opportunities that you have for
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Speaker 3: your kids in the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years.
5:38
Speaker 3: When they get going in their careers, most of the
5:41
Speaker 3: jobs that currently exist in the next twenty years will
5:43
Speaker 3: not So what we have to actually look at are
5:45
Speaker 3: the skills and the aptitude that we breed into our
5:48
Speaker 3: kids and we build into our kids, and that resilience
5:50
Speaker 3: and that ability for them to adapt and learn and change.
5:53
Speaker 3: There's been so much push for coding in the classroom,
5:55
Speaker 3: but we know now that AI is going to be
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Speaker 3: the thing that's writing the code, not us. So what
5:59
Speaker 3: we actually need the people can talk to artificial intelligence.
6:01
Speaker 3: We need the William Shakespeare's of the world, the silvia
6:03
Speaker 3: plaths of the world. We need the ability to talk
6:06
Speaker 3: to technology and have technology do what it is that
6:08
Speaker 3: we need to do. So how do you breed that
6:10
Speaker 3: into someone what languages? For me, coding was only ever
6:12
Speaker 3: a language. So you might have a child who you think,
6:14
Speaker 3: while they're really into languages, they're really into art, what
6:17
Speaker 3: on earth are they going to have in a technological future. Well,
6:20
Speaker 3: quite frankly, they're the people that are going to build
6:21
Speaker 3: the metaverse. One of the key things that we have
6:24
Speaker 3: that's going on with technology at the moment is we're
6:26
Speaker 3: all becoming consumers. We're not becoming curators, creators or engineers.
6:30
Speaker 3: And this is the rise of new cybernetics. So the
6:32
Speaker 3: idea of where humans, technology, and the environment converge, this
6:36
Speaker 3: is where magic is going to happen. And Steve Jobs
6:38
Speaker 3: predicted this twenty years ago before Mark Zuckerberger even thought
6:41
Speaker 3: about using social media to track down single women on campus.
6:44
Speaker 3: And so, if we look at the skills that you
6:47
Speaker 3: might want to present to any of your children, regardless
6:50
Speaker 3: of their genders, is the opportunity for them to flourish
6:53
Speaker 3: in the things that they care about, because everything human
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Speaker 3: is going to have value, everything automated is going to
6:59
Speaker 3: be automated. To be able to approach a problem with
7:02
Speaker 3: a creative mindset and a systems led way of thinking
7:06
Speaker 3: are the absolute needs that we have even right now
7:09
Speaker 3: in industry. So we know. So that's stage one. So
7:13
Speaker 3: allow them to do what they love. Allow them to
7:15
Speaker 3: be creative. And don't think that an English degree is
7:17
Speaker 3: going to stop them working in technology or an Arts
7:19
Speaker 3: degree is going to stop them working in technology, because
7:21
Speaker 3: every job is going to be working in technology in
7:23
Speaker 3: ten year's time.
7:24
Speaker 2: I have to stop you before you go on to
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Speaker 2: point two. I'm so I'm so glad that you said that,
7:30
Speaker 2: because I've got a daughter who loves English, and just
7:33
Speaker 2: the other day I was saying to her, go to UNI,
7:36
Speaker 2: do Arts, do English?
7:37
Speaker 1: And she said, but what's the point. What am I
7:39
Speaker 1: going to do with that? And I was saying to it.
7:43
Speaker 2: The skills that you will learn, the creativity, the analytical thought,
7:46
Speaker 2: the critical way of analyzing and working through problems, the
7:51
Speaker 2: knowledge that you're gain as an English major. I mean,
7:53
Speaker 2: it's such a weird thing to study at UNI. People
7:55
Speaker 2: going to do business or accounting, or they go and
7:57
Speaker 2: do it or whatever it is, but or psychology. But
8:00
Speaker 2: I said, English is your theme. It's what lights you up.
8:03
Speaker 2: Don't worry about the career. Who cares about the career.
8:06
Speaker 2: It will sort itself out if you find what you love.
8:09
Speaker 3: When the pandemic hit, where did we all turn? We
8:12
Speaker 3: all turned to the arts. I was so desperately upset
8:15
Speaker 3: that they weren't better supported because we all straight away
8:18
Speaker 3: went to streaming services. We went to live opera streaming services.
8:21
Speaker 3: We went to you know, watching people singing alone in pubs.
8:24
Speaker 3: You know, we try. We went to the arts, We
8:26
Speaker 3: went to who we are? And I remember Winston Churchill.
8:28
Speaker 3: I think in World War two someone said something about
8:31
Speaker 3: him moving all of the British Museum things into some
8:33
Speaker 3: of the London underground stations, and they were like, well,
8:35
Speaker 3: what on earth do you care about this kind of old,
8:37
Speaker 3: dusty artwork for? And he said, what do you think
8:39
Speaker 3: we're fighting for? We're fighting for who we are, and
8:42
Speaker 3: who we are in literalary concepts and constructs for me
8:45
Speaker 3: is incredibly important. And I'd like you to send your
8:48
Speaker 3: daughter looking for Professor Genevieve Bell's work because at the moment,
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Speaker 3: Professor Genevieve is looking at the new cybernetics and she's
8:54
Speaker 3: actually looking backwards in time to find the very first
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Speaker 3: moments where cybernetics and the metaverse were ever discussed, and
8:59
Speaker 3: all the way back to eighteen fifty one to the
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Speaker 3: London Winter's Fair. So if your daughter wants to get
9:05
Speaker 3: involved in the future, she needs to understand the past,
9:07
Speaker 3: and she needs to understand the past of language and
9:09
Speaker 3: of creation and of environment and what it is to
9:11
Speaker 3: be human, not what it is to be able to
9:13
Speaker 3: fill out an Excel spreadsheet.
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Speaker 1: Everything's connected. I love this.
9:16
Speaker 3: Everything is connected.
9:17
Speaker 1: What's point too?
9:20
Speaker 3: So point to is you need to be a bit active, right, So,
9:22
Speaker 3: though you might have a child who's really engaged in
9:23
Speaker 3: the visual arts, for example, where has your daughter ever tried,
9:26
Speaker 3: you know, writing a poem using an AI code. Has
9:29
Speaker 3: she ever participated in an after school camp or got
9:33
Speaker 3: involved with a school holiday program where she's maybe going
9:36
Speaker 3: out onto country in Australia and learning from people that
9:38
Speaker 3: speak different languages. Has she ever looked at history from
9:41
Speaker 3: a different set of eyes? Has she traveled? Will she backpack?
9:44
Speaker 3: Will she take a gap year? Some of your other
9:46
Speaker 3: daughters might be more technologically minded. Where are they doing
9:49
Speaker 3: their work experience? Have you bought a VR headset so
9:52
Speaker 3: your artists children can maybe paint as a virtual virtuality
9:55
Speaker 3: artist is a thing now, by the way, So what
9:58
Speaker 3: I'm saying here is you need to spend time and
9:59
Speaker 3: money not only allowing your children to be who they are,
10:01
Speaker 3: but actually to push them down the rabbit holes of
10:03
Speaker 3: where these technologies are coming out of. This could be
10:06
Speaker 3: as simple as you might not like coding, you might
10:08
Speaker 3: not like tech, and that's fine because you've got a
10:10
Speaker 3: whole load of other friends that you can shove into this.
10:12
Speaker 3: Right So you might have a cousin, a brother and
10:14
Speaker 3: aren't a best mate, somebody who your child trusts and
10:17
Speaker 3: has as a really solid relationship with, and they can
10:19
Speaker 3: go and do a Girl Geek Academy coding camp, for example,
10:22
Speaker 3: where both of them learn to code and both of
10:24
Speaker 3: them work on a project. So that your daughter then
10:26
Speaker 3: has a mentor that's back in her regular life away
10:28
Speaker 3: from school that she can talk to about coding, she
10:30
Speaker 3: can talk to about algorithms, she can talk to about
10:32
Speaker 3: machine learning, and they have a relationship built around this
10:36
Speaker 3: absorption of technology.
10:37
Speaker 1: Okay, So two points.
10:39
Speaker 2: Number one, make sure your kids are pursuing their passions
10:42
Speaker 2: and another to steer them into the tech avenues that
10:46
Speaker 2: build out from that. And if it's not, you invite
10:49
Speaker 2: them to investigate themselves, which kind of flies in the
10:51
Speaker 2: face of so much of the advice out there that
10:53
Speaker 2: your kids have got to get off screens, right, because
10:55
Speaker 2: this is where they're going to learn that, this is
10:57
Speaker 2: where they're going to do it. If there's any other
11:00
Speaker 2: things that parents could be doing too, I mean, you
11:03
Speaker 2: know what, I'm interrupting myself here.
11:04
Speaker 1: I can't help it.
11:06
Speaker 2: Anyone who says that, and I don't know anyone who
11:09
Speaker 2: does say this, but there's this stereotype that's still out
11:12
Speaker 2: there that I don't know, girls don't do engineering. For example,
11:16
Speaker 2: you can look around a university course and all the
11:18
Speaker 2: guys there, there's only two girls in the room or
11:20
Speaker 2: whatever it is. I'm listening to what you're saying, Catherine,
11:22
Speaker 2: and even if parents are listening to this and going,
11:25
Speaker 2: I have no idea what she's actually saying, and I'm
11:27
Speaker 2: sure that there will be a few who are going, WHOA,
11:29
Speaker 2: what happened here? What happened to the podcast? My sense
11:33
Speaker 2: is that anybody who's listening to you can Number One,
11:36
Speaker 2: they know that you know what you're talking about, and
11:39
Speaker 2: that you're female surprised. I mean, this is this is
11:43
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, and this is doable, and it's supposed
11:46
Speaker 2: to be there for everybody. And the passion and the
11:49
Speaker 2: excitement and the interest that you have in this is contagious.
11:53
Speaker 2: I feel like my energy level has lifted about seven,
11:55
Speaker 2: not just since we began the conversation, just because I
11:59
Speaker 2: can hear it coming out of you. If there was
12:02
Speaker 2: one last thing that parents could do other than direct
12:05
Speaker 2: their kids in those into those avenues, even if they
12:07
Speaker 2: don't know what they are themselves, and have them experimenting
12:10
Speaker 2: them and using their screens and the technologies productively going
12:14
Speaker 2: down these different rabbit holes. What's the last take home
12:19
Speaker 2: message that you might give to parents around girls STEM
12:22
Speaker 2: and not downplaying their intelligence.
12:25
Speaker 3: I really think you needed to work with your schools.
12:28
Speaker 3: So we have so many amazing principles, deputy principles, career counselors,
12:34
Speaker 3: STEM teachers, language teachers, geography teachers, history teachers, and the
12:38
Speaker 3: reason why people go into teaching is because they're actually
12:40
Speaker 3: futurists and so Your children are exposed to futurists every
12:43
Speaker 3: day when they go to school. They are literally in
12:46
Speaker 3: They put their brains into the hands of people who
12:48
Speaker 3: have got decades of training and experience to help them
12:51
Speaker 3: see the world in a different way and maybe look
12:54
Speaker 3: at over the edges of the horizon as to where
12:56
Speaker 3: that world is going to go. So, as a parent,
12:58
Speaker 3: if you really feel like your child child needs to
13:01
Speaker 3: experience something new or learn something different, engage with your
13:05
Speaker 3: school and discuss it and work out how's the best
13:07
Speaker 3: way to actually add value to the whole school community
13:10
Speaker 3: kids Going into school, learning something in a classroom and
13:12
Speaker 3: coming home again is not how this is going to stick.
13:14
Speaker 3: It's not how any of this is going to change.
13:15
Speaker 3: Going into a classroom seeing something from the real world,
13:18
Speaker 3: seeing things from a futurist point of view, getting involved
13:20
Speaker 3: in brand new projects, working with industry, work experience. So
13:24
Speaker 3: adding value to what is already happening without adding pressure,
13:28
Speaker 3: I think is probably my final ask. Now, sit there
13:31
Speaker 3: and go how the heck am I going to do that?
13:33
Speaker 3: Because the school obviously has this great program and this,
13:35
Speaker 3: that and the other. Have you ever talked to the
13:37
Speaker 3: teachers about what they might like to do. Have you
13:39
Speaker 3: ever talked to the principle about what's coming up on
13:41
Speaker 3: the horizon and how we can help. So you might
13:44
Speaker 3: be a small business owner and you might sell cars,
13:47
Speaker 3: for example, Well, if you haven't heard of blockchain, you're
13:50
Speaker 3: going to hear about it pretty soon. And if you
13:52
Speaker 3: don't have a website, you're probably not selling very many cars.
13:55
Speaker 3: And if you don't understand search engine optimization, you're probably
13:58
Speaker 3: not doing so well. So it's like, if you want
14:00
Speaker 3: to have success even in your own business, engaging with
14:03
Speaker 3: technology and engaging with the way young people engage with technology,
14:07
Speaker 3: you deserve to have a look at this too. Nobody
14:09
Speaker 3: is obsolete yet, nobody's obsolete full stop. And one of
14:13
Speaker 3: the things that really bothers me about big tech and
14:15
Speaker 3: some of the power differentials we're seeing is that you're
14:17
Speaker 3: almost creating two parts of society, one of which that
14:20
Speaker 3: engages with this and the other which which is obsolete.
14:22
Speaker 3: And I don't want to see obsolescence across society anywhere, Catherine.
14:26
Speaker 2: There is a lot of parents, a lot of school teachers,
14:28
Speaker 2: school principals, school counselors. People who listen to this podcast too,
14:31
Speaker 2: will be their minds may just be exploding with ideas
14:35
Speaker 2: based on what we've discussed just now. If they'd like
14:38
Speaker 2: to continue the conversation with you, how can they contact.
14:40
Speaker 3: You on every single piece of social media. I am
14:43
Speaker 3: at doctor Catherine Ball, so you can find me on everything.
14:46
Speaker 1: Great, and that's Catherine. Now, that's Catherine with a C and.
14:49
Speaker 3: ANH iron E B a double L as in football.
14:52
Speaker 2: Doctor Catherine Bull. What a delight to talk to you.
14:55
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with this.
14:57
Speaker 3: Oh thanks so much. I could just keep going. And
15:00
Speaker 3: I'm really glad that you're keeping me short today because
15:01
Speaker 3: it's very hot up here in Queensland at the moment,
15:03
Speaker 3: so I hope everyone's staying safe and well. And yeah,
15:06
Speaker 3: just look, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for the future.
15:08
Speaker 1: Thanks Catherine.
15:09
Speaker 2: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
15:12
Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and if
15:15
Speaker 2: you'd like more info about the stuff we talked about,
15:16
Speaker 2: check out the show notes for the podcast. You can
15:18
Speaker 2: visit at doctor Catherine Ball on all the social media's
15:21
Speaker 2: or to make your family happier check us out at
15:23
Speaker 2: Happyfamilies dot com dot au.