innovateHer.io

This past week, I visited 9 classrooms across Clark County School District, taught an after-school Computer Science education program at Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada, AND went on News 3 (NBC) and Fox 5 for #CSEducationWeek! I can't believe all of this was nothing more than some bullet points in a Google Doc less than a month ago 🙈. As you may or may not know, pageantry and The Miss America Opportunity is a big part of my life and my identity. I came out of my "retirement" from pageantry earlier this year to compete for Miss Nevada 2024, where I placed 1st runner-up. If you know me, you know that I don't take "no" for an answer very easily, so as soon as the opportunity arose, I applied to compete again for Miss Nevada 2025. But I didn't get back into pageantry for the glitz & glam or the sparkles & sashes. I found my love and passion for pageantry again through service, community involvement, and advocacy, specifically for women in innovation-based fields and equitable access to innovation-focused education. With that in mind, I had a BIG vision for CS Education Week. When I sat down a month ago to figure it out, I set four goals: 🎯 Goal: Get some media attention and visibility on the work I did through a feature on prime-time news 🌟 Result: Invited to talk about my work for CS Education Week and my nonprofit, innovateHer.io, as Miss Clark County on Channel 3 (NBC) & 5 (Fox) 🎯 Goal: Classroom visits to talk about the theme of my take on CS Education Week, "Possibilities: Where a CS Education Can Lead You" - minimum goal of 5, stretch goal of 10 🌟 Result: I hit 9 ~ 7 high schools + 2 elementary schools. 🎯 Goal: An educational program partnership with a youth organization, focusing on providing basics-level CS education to under-served students in the 10-12 age range 🌟 Result: I chose to partner with Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada to create a 2-day after-school workshop series on CS/coding basics. 🎯 Goal: "CS After-Hours" celebrations, showcasing the intersection of Computer Science with other industries 🌟 Result: I hosted an event in partnership with Illuminarium Experiences and NCWIT - Nevada Affiliate, and will host another event tomorrow in partnership with BattleBots. I really did not think I would be able to pull this off and I must've sent over 40 cold emails in the last four weeks to make it all happen. The fact that it did is so surreal to me. Thank you so, so much to every single person who helped me make all of this happen this week, including but not limited to -- Kim Wagner at News 3, Nicole at Fox 5, Mr. Miller at Spring Valley HS, Ms. Napolitano at Cunningham Elementary, Danielle at BGCSN, Dr. Edwards at Rancho HS, Mr. Mayo at A-Tech, Ms. Semmler at West Tech, Ms. Faye at Sierra Vista HS, Asst. Principal Garvin at Cheyenne HS, Ms. Coultas at Palo Verde HS, Mr. Dondoyano at Coral Academy, Amelia Gulling, MPA at BattleBots, and last but most certainly not least, Snehal Bhakta at NCWIT NV/CCSD.

Day 1️⃣ of #CSEducationWeek as Miss Clark County 👑 I kicked off Computer Science Education Week, bright and early, with a visit to the News 3 Las Vegas (LV NBC affiliate) studio for a live interview on their 6:30am segment, where I talked about my efforts for #CSEdWeek, including - ⇒ 9 classroom visits in and around Clark County School District ⇒ An after-school educational program in partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada ⇒ "CS After-Hours" celebrations in partnership with NCWIT - Nevada Affiliate, Illuminarium Experiences (LV), and BattleBots Thank you so much to morning anchor, Kim Wagner, for giving me the space and platform to share my story and my efforts! After the morning news, I headed over to Spring Valley High School in Spring Valley to talk to a Computer Science class about the possibilities of where a CS education can take you. Thank you so much to Mr. Miller for having me to speak to your class! For the afternoon, I headed across to Sunrise Manor to visit the Girls Who Code chapter at Cynthia Cunningham Elementary School (GWC NV55713), where I shared my journey into CS with the club members, learned a bit about theirs, and led an activity where the girls created an avatar using GWC's own girlswhocodegirls.com (a tool created for girls to design video game characters for girls, by girls). But of course, being a GWC alumni and Alumni Advisory Council member, I had to leave them with something to remember me by -- I 💚 GWC friendship bracelets! Thank you so much to Ms. Napolitano for having me as a visitor/guest speaker to your club chapter! To wrap up my day, I headed to the John D. "Jackie" Gaughan Clubhouse to teach an after-school "Coding 101" workshop at Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada. The first half of the workshop covered basic CS concepts like algorithms, conditionals, loops, arguments, and functions, and the second half put these concepts to practice, taking on challenges from Code.org's "Star Wars: Build a Galaxy from Code." Kickoff day was SO much fun, but I still have a full schedule ahead of me! Stay tuned for more updates on my efforts for CS Education Week as Miss Clark County 👑 #STEMEducation #GirlsInSTEM #CSEducation

𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 2024! (Part 1) Thanks to the support from Bloomberg and NCWIT, each day was filled with inspiration, learning, and invaluable connections. Here's a breakdown of the unforgettable moments that made this conference so empowering: 𝐃𝐚𝐲 1: ✅ 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬-𝘐𝘯 ✅ 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 – Incredible atmosphere with a live DJ, dancing, and talks from America Ferrera and AnitaB.org's founder. The ‘me + We’ theme was deeply inspiring. ✅ 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘔𝘦𝘦𝘵-𝘜𝘱 – Meeting connections like Morgan Young, Audrey Chen, and Ciara Cade in person was unforgettable, and dancing with them brought excitement to life! ✅ 𝘉𝘰𝘣𝘢 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 – Huge thanks to Kanika Mohan, Aimen Moten, Audrey Chen, and Manny Duenas 😛 for hosting! Reconnected with old friends like Michelle Ye and made new connections with inspiring women like Dorcas Ajayi, Manjot Kaur, Carolina Bolnykh, Michelle Naa Odarley Lawson, Ume Habiba, Julia Bock, and Rosa Figueroa from innovateHer.io. The energy and warmth were undeniable. 𝐃𝐚𝐲 2: ✅ 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘰 𝘋𝘢𝘺 1 – Company booths each brought their own flavor: Jane Street – The intricate puzzles and challenges they set up weren’t just fun but really emphasized how much they value sharp, creative problem-solving. Citadel – They had this massive screen and a rounded trade desk setup that pulled you right into the feel of a live trading floor. American Express – Their café-style booth was a welcoming space where we could grab coffee and chat with their team. It felt so genuine and down-to-earth. ✅ 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘴 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥: - "Discover & Activate Your Personal Brand" with Shadene Pinnock and Michelle Webb guided me in crafting both a long and short version of my personal brand statement. What struck me most was sitting next to women from Apple and Amazon, much further along in their careers yet still eager to enhance their personal branding. It was a powerful reminder that as we grow, our branding evolves too—making it essential to regularly reflect and adapt. - "Building Spheres of Influence in the Workplace" - Kimberly Jung’s practical tips for connecting with and inspiring colleagues resonated deeply with me, especially as I think about my future aspirations of starting my own business. Plus, these strategies are directly applicable to my current role as president of the Girls Who Code club, where inspiring others is key to our success. ✅ 𝘉𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘨’𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 – Connected with fellow Bloomberg/NCWIT grantees and met my mentor Yiran C.. ✅ 𝘋𝘶𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘰 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 – Besides learning more about Duolingo, I had a wonderful time discussing our shared Rewriting the Code experiences with Swadha Rai, expressing how grateful we are for such a supportive community. I also reconnected with Anna Reis, my fellow summer hub leader.

This month, I had the privilege of attending the 2024 Grace Hopper Celebration!!! 👩💻 ⭐️ I'm extremely grateful for innovateHer.io and Morgan Young! I was one of 2 finalists for the first-ever GHC innovateHer.io scholarship! This scholarship not only allowed me to attend the conference, but also helped me build lasting connections, gain new insights, and leave more empowered than ever. As an FGLI student in tech, scholarships and opportunities like this from innovateHer.io truly make a huge difference in the community. 💖 I gained so much from this conference, but the friends I made were the best part! Huge shoutout to Julia Bock and ThaoAn (Lily) Nguyen for being such amazing conference buddies!! 👯♀️ and shoutout to all the other girlies I met through innovateHer.io and Rewriting the Code! Some other cool things I learned about at GHC: 1️⃣ How to make super cool digital art with code 2️⃣ How to build a quick web app while I brew my coffee 3️⃣ What is inside a hard drive 4️⃣ How I can apply AI to my personal projects 5️⃣ How to be a leader in my field! Here’s to girlhood, empowerment, and the future we’re creating together in tech! #GHC2024

innovateHer.io x GHC Recap (warning: sappy post ahead 🥹) Last week, I ran two of my first THREE non-profit initiatives -- the innovateHer x GHC Scholarship(s), and the innovateHer x GHC Community Mentorship Program! I only launched innovateHer two months ago, but I knew I wanted to make something BIG happen for GHC. But why, GHC? There was a lot of controversy surrounding last year's conference, but I learned a lot from it. Namely, I learned firsthand, what attendees needed to be successful at conferences and feel safe and comfortable while doing so. Three major themes emerged: accessibility, community, and mentorship. So these were my 3 biggest priorities when it came to my initiatives. I wanted to ~ 1️⃣ Create opportunities to attend the conference for those who wouldn't have the ability to go otherwise due to limiting circumstances. 2️⃣ Provide a support system and IRL community for students attending the conference to ensure every participant has someone to lean on. So, I created two initiatives to address these two goals: 🌟 innovateHer x GHC Scholarship -- We were able to award not one, not two, but FIVE scholarships to assist students in attending GHC! We awarded two full-ride scholarships, two virtual scholarships, and one partial travel scholarship. 🌟 innovateHer x GHC Community Mentorship Program -- We accepted 32 GHC attendees into our mentorship program with 5 amazing community leads/mentors! We hosted our own "GHC After-Hours" event on Day 1 with a dinner and bonding night at Round1 Philadelphia. We hosted our official mentorship meetup on Day 2 in the Heartbeat Lounge. Lastly, we hosted our scholarship recipients for a dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy Philadelphia. Both initiatives turned out to be more than I ever could have hoped for or dreamed of. I watched our community members forge new friends, deepen bonds in existing relationships, and make memories to last a lifetime. I not only watched a community grow and blossom, but a sisterhood come to life. The messages I received throughout and after the conference have been overwhelmingly wholesome and mildly tear-jerking. 🥹 I couldn't be happier with how everything came to fruition and I am still in shock that it was able to come together so last minute. And although our GHC24 adventure has come to a close, our innovateHer.io journey is JUST getting started. 😉 If our mission of 𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙚[𝙝𝙚𝙧]𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮, 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 resonates with you, we want to have you on board! 🤝 If you're interested in sponsoring, donating, or becoming a corporate partner → email me at morgan@innovateher.io 💌 If you want to stay updated on upcoming programs/initiatives → subscribe to our newsletter @ https://lnkd.in/gBYwQvrh 🩷 If you're interested in volunteering → https://lnkd.in/g-cz4rgK #innovateHer

🌟 What an incredible week at the #GraceHopperCelebration (GHC) 2024! 🎉 In the past week, I had the amazing opportunity to connect with so many brilliant people and inspiring companies, including #AWS, #OpenAI, and other great companies, where I had insightful conversations with their recruiters and employees. This conference has been a truly transformative experience for me, personally and professionally. Sometimes I felt uncertain about my path, especially navigating the challenges of breaking into the tech industry. But at #GHC, I had the privilege of meeting so many like-minded friends who are passionate, driven, and on similar journeys. We shared stories, encouraged each other, and motivated one another to keep pushing forward. It’s been a comforting and uplifting experience to feel surrounded by such genuine support. 🌸 I feel especially grateful to be part of the innovateHer.io x AnitaB.org GHC Community Mentorship Program, which helped me prepare for GHC and gave me insights from their experiences. Special thanks to Morgan Young and my mentor Ciara Cade, who were always there to support me whenever I had questions or needed guidance at GHC. Their encouragement and advice have been invaluable! 🙌 One highlight was a coffee chat with the #AWS team ☕️, including Dan Miller, and Chris Lentowski where I gained incredible insights into their projects and future directions. It was a fantastic learning opportunity that left me even more excited about the future! A big thank you to everyone who made this happen. I also attended events hosted by #OpenAI, where I had the chance to explore cutting-edge technologies and network with some truly inspiring professionals. I met several friends there, including Yalu Pan, Jiabei Liu, and Parvathi Arumugam, and we shared some great conversations.  Listening to the career paths and experiences of Baishen Xu, and Philip Su was eye-opening and reinforced my passion for technology and innovation. 💡 The connections I made and the lessons I learned at GHC have left me feeling more motivated and focused than ever. I’m incredibly grateful for this experience and for everyone who contributed to making it so memorable. Here's to continuing this journey with the amazing people I met along the way! 🚀 A huge thank you to AnitaB.org for hosting this incredible event! I’d love to connect with all the amazing women who attended GHC—let’s grow and build together! 💪👩💻 #WomenInTech #GHC2024 #TechCommunity #gracehoppercelebration #GHC #WomenInTech #WomenInSTEM

Highlights of my week at #GHC24! 🧳 The Career Expo was an amazing experience as I talked to recruiters from amazing companies such as LinkedIn, Walmart Global Tech, American Express, Experian, Anduril Industries, The Walt Disney Company, and so many more! It was great to learn more about PM internship opportunities and hear more about what each company does. 🕹️ I attended Roblox's Assessments 101 workshop, providing me with a deeper understanding and overview of Roblox's unique online assessment. My partner and I were proud of how we tackled the demo game with our problem-solving skills and analytical thinking. 👩🏻💻 It was awesome meeting my fellow innovateHer.io community members and my mentor Morgan Young! We uplifted and helped each other throughout the week as we navigated this amazing conference. ☁️ I was treated to an exclusive lunch with Cloudflare and learned so much from the panelists about navigating tech careers as females. At my table, Judy Cheong and Tanushree S. provided invaluable insight into Product Management full-time and internship roles and what stands out in an early career candidate. Philadelphia, you have been good to me. Until next year! #GHC #GHC24 #GHC2024 #GraceHopperCelebration #VGHC24 #VGHC2024

GHC Day 1 & 2 ❗ As #GHC2024 is wrapping up today it has seriously gone by so quickly. This has truly been a whirlwind experience and I've loved reconnecting with so many ladies I've met across the country! Women in tech is a very closely knit community but I think I underestimated just how close. Over the past 2 days, I've reconnected with people I met in January at Harvard WECode, others I encountered during my time in California at the Berkeley AI Hackathon over the summer, and meeting some of my LinkedIn buddies in real life for the first time. I want to thank Morgan Young and innovateHer.io for providing consistent community throughout the conference. It was also great engaging with some great companies like Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Meta, Vanguard, OpenAI and many more. Lastly, shoutout to AnitaB.org for the conference this year. There was a lot of skepticism going around about how this year would go, after some of the chaos I heard about second hand last year. The truth was quite the contrary: the lines were reasonable size (I was able to visit my top companies in just the first 2 days of the expo), there was strong sense of community and empowerment, and there were hardly any men🤭 I look forward to attending this conference again in the future and enjoy this photo dump 💫

👧🏻🤔Just got back from SASE - Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers’s Collegiate Conference and O-M-G were there so many talents and amazingly brilliant people I got to meet!! 🤩💕 As a Vietnamese immigrant and first generation student, it was such a surreal experience to meet other Viets in the engineering space 👏🏻👏🏻 And more than just a career fair, #SASE24 truly felt like a great community that embraces technical excellence and cultural identities. Shout out to innovateHer.io and Morgan Young for this opportunity! I didn’t know about SASE beforehand but I’m so happy to have found amazing friends through this conference!✨🌈❣️ 👀🫡 Peek at the Application Development Initiative’s Board Meetup with Matthew Labasan 👀✨ (Some big announcements coming from #ADI very soon as well, stay tuned)… Also got use a typewriter for the first time 💻 I thought that was super cool 😳 Excited to stay in touch with the SASE community a bit more in the future!! 👏🏻👏🏻🌈 #tech #aapi #sase24

GHC Day 1 & 2 ❗ As #GHC2024 is wrapping up today it has seriously gone by so quickly. This has truly been a whirlwind experience and I've loved reconnecting with so many ladies I've met across the country! Women in tech is a very closely knit community but I think I underestimated just how close. Over the past 2 days, I've reconnected with people I met in January at Harvard WECode, others I encountered during my time in California at the Berkeley AI Hackathon over the summer, and meeting some of my LinkedIn buddies in real life for the first time. I want to thank Morgan Young and innovateHer.io for providing consistent community throughout the conference. It was also great engaging with some great companies like Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Meta, Vanguard, OpenAI and many more. Lastly, shoutout to AnitaB.org for the conference this year. There was a lot of skepticism going around about how this year would go, after some of the chaos I heard about second hand last year. The truth was quite the contrary: the lines were reasonable size (I was able to visit my top companies in just the first 2 days of the expo), there was strong sense of community and empowerment, and there were hardly any men🤭 I look forward to attending this conference again in the future and enjoy this photo dump 💫