Latest / The Giving Project: Philanthropy, Generosity & Social Impact / She Believed in Her Code: Mentoring Women in Tech | The Giving Project
Transcript
- Have you ever stood in a room full of people who speak a language you haven’t quite learned yet, feeling like your very presence is an error code that needs debugging? That was me at twenty-two, sitting in the back of a server room, trying to remember how to breathe when every pair of eyes was looking for a mistake. I want you to close your eyes for just a second and imagine the hum. It’s that low, electric vibration that lives in the walls of data centers and engineering offices. For most of us, it’s background noise. But for young women entering the tech industry today, that hum can feel like a wall. I remember walking into my first job interview in the early two-thousands. The recruiter didn’t ask about my passion for innovation or my curiosity about human behavior. He asked if I could lift the server rack. I’m five-foot-four. I couldn’t lift a suitcase without straining my back, let alone a piece of hardware that weighed as much as a small car. But I didn’t leave. I stayed because I saw something else in that room. I saw a girl, maybe nineteen, sitting under her desk, hiding from the loud voices at the conference table. She wasn’t hiding because she was afraid. She was hiding because she was brilliant, and she knew that if she spoke up, they would only hear her voice, not her ideas. That moment changed everything for me. It taught me that technical skill is only half the battle. The other half is finding the courage to take up space when the architecture of the world wasn’t built for you. We often talk about mentorship as a grand gesture. A big dinner, a signed book, a formal introduction to a CEO. But what does real generosity look like on a Tuesday? It looks like staying late to review a pull request until your eyes burn. It looks like sending a text message that says, 'I saw your presentation today. You stumbled on slide four, but the way you handled the Q&A afterward was masterful.' It’s the quiet, unglamorous work of bearing witness. When we mentor young women in male-dominated fields, we aren’t just teaching them syntax or software architecture. We are teaching them how to trust their own intuition. In tech, there is always someone louder than you. Someone who will interrupt, who will mansplain the basic concept you’ve been working on for three weeks, who will take credit for the idea you whispered in the hallway. Mentorship is the practice of reminding them that their voice matters even when the room tries to drown it out. It’s about showing them that their perspective isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can offer isn’t advice at all. Sometimes it’s just silence. Sitting with them in the discomfort of being the only woman in the meeting, letting them know they don’t have to perform competence to deserve their seat at the table. Let’s talk about the heartbeat behind the headline. Every day, the news tells us about AI taking over jobs, about algorithms making biased decisions, about the digital divide growing wider. These are huge, scary concepts. They make us feel helpless. But impact isn’t just a metric; it’s a relationship. It happens in the one-on-one coffee chats, in the Slack channels where questions are answered without judgment, in the virtual reality spaces where shy students can practice public speaking before the real audience arrives. When we focus on the individual connection, the macro problems start to make sense. Because every line of code is written by a person. Every user interface is designed by a human being who wants to be understood. When we support young women in tech, we aren’t just filling a quota for diversity reports. We are ensuring that the tools we build reflect the complexity of the world we live in. If the people building the future are all the same type of person, the future will be limited to their narrow experience. We need the messy, beautiful, diverse voices of women to shape the digital landscape. We need them to ask the hard questions about privacy, about equity, about access. We need them to be the architects of a technology that heals rather than harms. There is a persistent myth in Silicon Valley that coding is a gift. That you’re either born with the logical mind or you aren’t. This narrative is dangerous because it keeps talented women out of the door. It convinces them that if they struggle, they don’t belong. But here is the truth that no one likes to admit: coding is hard. It is frustrating. It is full of errors and dead ends and moments of profound confusion. The best engineers in the world spend half their day fixing things that broke yesterday. When we mentor young women, we must dismantle this myth of natural genius. We must show them that struggle is part of the process, not a sign of failure. I had a mentee once, Sarah, who cried every time her code failed to compile. She felt stupid. She felt broken. So I shared my own stories of failures. I told her about the projects I abandoned, the apps I launched that nobody used, the jobs I lost because I couldn’t figure out a single line of Python. I showed her that resilience is more valuable than raw talent. Resilience is the ability to keep going when the screen goes black. It’s the willingness to try again tomorrow. When we normalize struggle, we give young women permission to be learners, not experts. And being a learner is the most powerful position you can hold in any industry. Think about the last time you helped someone cross a busy street. You didn’t carry them. You didn’t drive the car for them. You stood on the curb, you watched the traffic, and you made sure they felt safe enough to take the step themselves. That is what mentoring is. It is bridge-building. It requires patience. It requires us to slow down our own pace so that others can catch up. In the fast-moving world of technology, slowing down feels counterintuitive. We want quick fixes. We want scalable solutions. But human growth doesn’t scale. It happens in the messy, unpredictable moments of connection. When we invest in young women, we are investing in the sustainability of the entire industry. We are creating a network of support that will outlast the latest trend, the next funding round, the quarterly earnings report. This network becomes a safety net. When one woman falls, ten others are there to catch her. When one succeeds, she pulls three others up with her. This is how systemic change happens. Not through legislation alone, but through the daily, deliberate acts of lifting each other up. It’s about creating a culture where asking for help is seen as strength, not weakness. Where collaboration is valued over competition. Where the goal isn’t to be the smartest person in the room, but to make the room smarter. So, here is my invitation to you. You don’t have to be a CTO to make a difference. You don’t need a massive budget or a famous name. All you need is your attention. Look around your workplace, your community, your family. Is there a young woman who feels invisible? Who is doing excellent work but receiving little recognition? Reach out to her. Ask her about her goals. Listen to her fears. Share your mistakes. Offer to introduce her to someone who can help. Be the bridge. Be the mentor. Be the friend who reminds her that she belongs. And if you are that young woman, if you are reading this feeling like you’re drowning in imposter syndrome, please hear me: you are exactly where you need to be. Your voice is needed. Your perspective is vital. Your presence is not an error. It is a correction. We have been waiting for you. We have been waiting for you to rewrite the code, to redesign the system, to rebuild the world in your image. Don’t shrink yourself to fit into a space that was never meant for you. Expand the space. Claim it. Build it. And know that you are not alone. There is a whole community of women standing with you, ready to hold the light while you find your way. Let’s build a future that works for everyone. Let’s start today. Thank you for spending this time with me. I hope you walk away today feeling a little lighter, a little more connected, and ready to make a difference in your own corner of the world. Until next time, keep believing in the power of your own voice. I’ll see you soon.