Pass-It-On Awards Program: Fall 2010 Systers Pass-It-On Award Winners
Ann-Marie H.
Project Title: 
E-textiles workshop for highschool and middle school girls – the softer side of computing
Project Description:
Ann-Marie is a doctoral student in Information Systems Security at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Her interest in security is usable security and privacy, and how to apply human-centered design to security. Her PIO award-funded group project, E-textiles workshop for high school and middle school girls – the softer side of computing, will allow her to build samples of wearable computers and e-clothing. With her colleagues, she will be able to teach entry level e-textile workshops to young women (middle school and high school) on how to create a simple circuit with clothing and conductive thread. The e-textile workshops can provide a successful computing experience with materials that women have traditionally excelled in manipulating. That successful experience can translate into confidence in women’s abilities to create technology artifacts, and the realization that computing is not just cubicles and algorithms inside screens; computing can be a social experience.
Cassandra C.
Project Title: 
Websites, Blogs, and Videos for Oakland Middle School Girls
Project Description:
Cassandra is a middle school math teacher at United for Success, a public neighborhood middle school in Oakland, California, with an enrollment of 400 students, mainly Latino. Her PIO award-funded group project, Websites, Blogs, and Videos for Oakland Middle School Girls, will enable her and other teachers to teach twenty girls to build a website, and document their experiences through blogs, videos, and pictures. The school’s Student Leadership Team and the Sisters at Heart student group are collaborating this year on planning school wide events, creating a forum for girls to discuss issues affecting them, and engaging in action research around issues that affect our school and community. Their year’s work will culminate in a service learning project in New Orleans, where they will visit The Rethinkers, a group of middle school students that have been “rethinking” the public school system.
Iffat G.
Project Title: 
Community Technology Center for Women
Project Description:
Iffat is a youth activist and researcher based in Pakistan and a member of the Pakistan IT Policy Working Group. Her PIO award-funded project, Community Technology Center for Women, will enable her to establish a technology center for capacity building of young women from Layyah City and nearby villages in the remote part of the Punjab province in Pakistan. The technology center will empower them through provision of training in the use of modern Information and communication technologies (ICTs) in an enabling environment where they will have low-cost access to computers and Internet under guidance and supervision. It will also provide them with a platform which acts as a resource center for education and discussion about emerging issues, such as the perils of security and privacy issues when submitting and sharing their data online.
Mandy H.
Project Title:
Technology Certifications
Project Description:
Mandy is an employment counselor/case manager with Americorp. She also manages their community technology center (CTC) computer lab, where she teaches both one-on-one and group computer classes, and is setting up and implementing youth technology and media classes. Her PIO award will enable her to pursue several technology certifications, in particular, the Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3) and Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Certification for three individual Microsoft programs. These certifications will lead to better employment opportunities in the IT sector.
Zarema K.
Project Title: 
Prelude to Success
Project Description:
Zarema is an instructor of programming and web-design at the Small Academy of Sciences in Crimea. She is also the chairperson of the Resource and Information Center “Koz-Aydin”, which reclaims and preserves Crimean Tatar cultural heritage lost during the Stalinist genocide of 1943-44. This year, she initiated a Women’s Club, “Nenkejan”, aimed at activating leadership among the Crimean Tatar women. Her PIO award-funded group project, Prelude to Success, will further the work of the Nenkejan Women’s Club, which will provide training in Internet technologies and new media, and uses the Internet to build and foster links with the international community of female leaders and women’s organizations. Members of Nenkejan Women’s Club will acquire the principles of project development, management and implementation, in order that they may sustain their socially-minded and culturally important projects and initiatives.