Shireen Mitchell: "You Can't Stop the Girl" Part 1 of 2
This Week's Guest: Shireen Mitchell
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Shireen Mitchell wears many hats: founder, author, speaker, social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, advocate, diversity analyst, and strategist in the political, digital, and social realms. But more importantly, she’s an award-winning woman of color in tech. And it all started as a young girl growing up in 1980s Harlem (and later the Bronx).
Shireen’s love for computers grew out of her affinity for early video games, back when she was beating all the boys in her neighborhood at games like Frogger and Galaga while still in elementary school. But, despite her superior skills, she’d learn quickly that the world of computers (and tech) was strictly reserved for the very boys she was better than—a realization that became increasingly glaring when she went to college, and even more so after she began her career.
Shireen’s unique experiences birthed her commitment to bringing more women into the tech and computer realm. Unfortunately, she’d learn very quickly that these same women also needed advocacy and protection from the vileness, sexism, and racism that was already permeating the early days of the internet.
Our enlightening conversation with Shireen is certainly a huge teaching moment. And we’ve broken it up into two episodes. In our seventh episode of season four, we discuss the ongoing struggles Black women have in tech, and Shireen offers up some blunt and insightful advice to young Black women looking to get a foot in the door. You’ll also hear why it was a problem for Shireen to have an advanced reading level at a young age, how Pac-Man was actually created for women gamers, her surprising experiences attending an HBCU, and why men were asking to come to her women’s coding classes in the early 90s.
LINKS AND ARTICLES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Stop Online Violence Against Women - A nonprofit that addresses inadequate laws and policies that lack protections for women in particular women of color
The History of Pac-Man - The clip Shireen mentioned that discusses how Pac-Man was created to appeal to girls
Facebook cracked down ahead of the Chauvin verdict. Why not always? - LA TImes article featuring thoughts from Shireen
Timnit Gebru - A widely respected leader in AI ethics research known for co-authoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color
More About Our Guest
Serial Founder, Speaker, Trainer, Social Entrepreneur, Diversity Analyst, and a Political, Digital, & Social Strategist
A native of New York, Shireen Mitchell is an award-winning technological woman of color who was playing video games, designing BBS boards and gopher sites prior to the Web going worldwide. As an early adopter and one of the few women of color web designers in the early 90's, she has been involved with tech and social networks for over 30 years.
Shireen is also a serial founder. Digital Sisters/Sistas Inc. is the first organization to focus on women and girls of color in tech and online access. She created the first women of color web multimedia management firm (MHG). Her recent projects are Tech Media Swirl, Stop Online Violence Against Women & Human First Tech.
Shireen was the manager for PoliticallyBlack.com, a site that was later sold to Netivation and ended at Politico.com. She created the game TechnoDemic, a multimedia competition to help youth learn technology and programming terms.
Shireen has organized various tech events around the country and/or on planning committees: the Digital Community, Techno Rodeo, Feminism 2.0, She's Geeky DC, Geeky Girls Night Out, Nonprofit 2.0, Computers, Freedom and Privacy, Gov20 Expo, and others.
As an author, she's written “Gaining Daily Access to Science and Technology” in the book “50 Ways to Improve Women’s Lives” and “Access to Technology: Race, Gender, and Class Bias,” The Scholar and Feminist Online.
Shireen has been named one of the Fast Company's The Most Influential Women in Technology, DC Tech Titan, DC's Top Ten most influential in Social Media, The Root 100: African-American Leaders of Excellence and GovFresh's 100+ Women in Government & Tech. She has also been awarded the Social Citizen: Apps for Democracy DC, Rising Star: Woman of Color in Technology, and Heroine in Tech.
