We grabbed her for a chat and thought that what she shared was too important to keep to ourselves – read on for her story, and for advice she has for kids about finding their path and putting themselves out there.

What got you interested in diversity and inclusion?

“It started back when I was in university and lived overseas. Through these experiences, I learnt more about the value of different opinions and perspectives and how they are needed to create better ideas – especially in Singapore, with people who come from distinct backgrounds.

I also come from a social justice perspective: it’s important to ensure under-served and under-represented communities have their voices heard. At Google, we look at female representation, and track whether different races are represented. And when I first started getting interested in inclusion, I looked at the Malay community and how it is underserved and underrepresented in many areas of service.

My time as a teacher also made me realise the value of having different people work together. You want children to build a habit of being with people who don’t necessarily look like them or think like them. It’s important to push children out of their comfort zone so that they don’t form exclusive cliques, or unintentionally create echo chambers.

How does diversity make a difference in the work that you do now at Google?

“Here’s a simple example from work about why diversity matters: When we first created YouTube Mobile, 25% of the videos were uploaded upside down. Many of us thought it was a bug, but we soon realised it was because 25% of the videos were recorded by left-handers. The way you orient your phone affects how videos turn out – something so basic didn’t occur to us. But even the simple consideration of people being right or left-handed is important in creating a product.

Different perspectives can contribute to a better idea in STEM. Many people think that robotics is very black and white; but STEM isn’t a dehumanised form because we create it.

A robot or an app is influenced by humans behind them. The people building the tool and structure together is very important because there are different ways of thinking and blindspots we may not notice on our own.”

Do you have any advice for kids growing up today?

1. Look and ask for help when you need it.

   When you’re young and you don’t see people who look like you in certain spaces, you don’t know where to start or to find help. You can always ask your teachers, seniors, or counsellors for advice and how to go about doing something.

   

   Learn to be resourceful and look for help. Make sure you ask questions. Be curious and put in the work. Be resilient and excellent while doing that and that will get you far. To be resilient and excellent, you need people to help you open doors. Especially when you’re young, you think that you need to do everything alone, but that’s not true. You just have to ask.

    

2. Get to know people who aren’t from the same school as you.
   

   It’s so important to gain insights from people from other backgrounds and from those who don’t have the same views as you.

   Always try to be around people who don’t look like you and think like you, because that’s when you’ll get to learn. 

3. Encourage others to speak up.

Many kids are shy and reserved, and hence don’t dare to voice out their thoughts. If kids were to be more welcoming and understanding towards others, they can then speak up more comfortably. They can feel like their voice wants to be heard. When you get many opinions and views, more ideas can come together and you can then work better together.”

. . .

This interview was authored by Jay-Lynn and Bia, interns at Saturday Kids, inspired by their experience volunteering at the VEX Robotics Kid-Powered Workshop, a robotics workshop designed to make robotics more inclusive to kids from different backgrounds. If you’re curious about making tech more inclusive – starting with kids – check out Code in the Community, an initiative sponsored by Google and IMDA to bring free coding classes to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

You can read more from Atikah here on her blog or follow her on Instagram.

The post Big Kids We Love: Atikah Amalina –  Googler and Diversity Advocate appeared first on Saturday Kids | Coding, Digital Literacy for Kids & Parents.

Over the 3-day workshop, we got to speak to budding roboticists – Yi Kai and Sanjit – who at 11 and 10 years old respectively, were 2 of the youngest participants at the workshop. Find out what they have to share about learning to code and tinkering with robots.

Hey boys! How was your experience learning to code with Python at Code in the Community?

Sanjit: “I learnt the basics, like how to draw pixels, how to write the program and how to use the console. It was very fun! The teachers were also kind.”

Yi Kai: “I enjoyed the class because when we learnt how to draw things, we could be creative and draw whatever we wanted. When we started to learn to use the console, we could interact with it and make it say funny things.”

After learning basic Python at Code in the Community, they continued to code at home. 

Sanjit: “I made a calculator and a tic tac toe game. I’m also trying to make a social media app, like a messaging app. It works, but it’s only basic.”

Yi Kai: “I tried to code things I learnt in school. So I coded this factor tree where the numbers are on top and the programme would draw the factors. I also made a hangman game with interactive prizes.”

How are you finding the Kid-Powered Robotics Workshop so far?

Sanjit: “I like that there is a competition. Some other competitions that I’ve been to were more like a science fair, which I didn’t like. Also, I went to other competitions previously and didn’t have good ideas and I lost. So I feel like I have to win this competition. 

The mentors from ACSI also helped us so that we have enough support.”

Yi Kai: “This program has taught me how to build robots and how to interact with the robot to make it better. There weren’t many materials in the set, so we had to improvise.

I like that this programme lets me use real robots. In my school, we seldom use real robots and use computer programs instead.”

During the workshop, they also faced some challenges. They had to brainstorm ideas to solve the problems they faced.

Yi Kai: “We are a team of 4. So sometimes we all have different opinions and ideas. We don’t know which ideas to choose and we always want to choose our own ideas. So we have to learn to work things out.”

Sanjit: “Also controlling the robot is hard. When you try to pick up the blocks, it tends to fall down.”

What have you learned from this programme?

Sanjit: “You have to listen to others. You can’t only stick to your own opinions forever. You have to consider other people’s opinions because they may be better. For example, this morning, we couldn’t decide who wanted to do the challenge. But in the end, we managed to work it out.”

Yi Kai: “When you do things solo, you won’t have much progress. But if you do it with a partner or a group, the robot will be better because you have more ideas to share.”

Do you know what you want to do in the future?

Sanjit: “I want to do something related to coding!”

Yi Kai: “I want to do something to earn a lot of money so that I can support my family.”

What advice would you give fellow kid coders?

Yi Kai: “I’d advise the kids to just try out whatever blocks they can. You can take someone else’s program and see how it works. You remove a few blocks and try to figure out what will happen after that.”

Sanjit: “Don’t give up after the lessons. Continue at home, do a Google search for ideas. There are also some library books that are useful. A very good author for this is Carol Vorderman. Her books taught me how to code in even before I joined Code in the Community.”

. . .

The Kid-Powered Workshop culminated in matches between the teams’ robots. The competition was fierce, with robots pushing and shoving each other while teams cheered their friends on. While there might have only been one winning team in the strictest sense of the word, seeing the kids cheer each other on and help each other out was what made us, as hosts, feel like this was a success.

Thanks to Google Singapore, VEX Robotics, and the REC Foundation who made this robotics workshop possible and enabled our Python grads to learn about a different side of coding and tech. We believe that it’s important to continue providing opportunities to students beyond the classroom – if you’re keen to support more initiatives like this to level the playing field for under-privileged children, drop us an email at [email protected] or sign up to volunteer for Code in the Community, our multi-level programme providing free coding classes in Scratch and Python to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds

This interview was authored by Jay-Lynn and Bia – interns from Saturday Kids by way of the Raffles Girls School Work Experience Programme. 

The post When Kid Coders met Robots at the Kid-Powered Workshop 2019: Meet Code in the Community Alumni Yi Kai and Sanjit appeared first on Saturday Kids | Coding, Digital Literacy for Kids & Parents.