Over Coffee® is on Christmas hiatus.  We’ll be rebroadcasting some of our most popular episodes from 2016 for the next few weeks.  Have a great holiday!

“(Women) really are life hackers,” says Beth Beck.

Beth, who is the Open Innovation Program Manager in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at NASA, is encouraging them to take those skills to the next level.

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In 2015, Beth came up with the idea of the “Open NASA Data Bootcamp”.  This is a day-long free event, geared specifically to women and newcomers, to take the mystery–and the scary parts–out of coding and problem-solving.

Participants get comfortable with these in a STEAM setting: learning to make light-up wearables, for example, or seeing binary code explained visually.   Then, these new skills give them the confidence to participate in  the NASA International Space Apps Challenge hackathon.

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge is a free, weekend-long event to which everyone is invited.  It’s a “hackathon for good”, during which participants team up to use NASA open data.  Working together,  teams use this data–along with provided technology–to find innovative solutions for global problems.   The Challenge culminates in team presentations, on Sunday, with the winning teams receiving prizes, such as JPL tours or the opportunity to see a space launch.

At the 2016 Women in Data Bootcamp, at Pasadena’s Cross Campus facility, Beth talked about her background, her experiences designing the Data Bootcamp and the ways creativity is shaping the future.

NASA just announced their 2017 International Space Apps Challenge hackathon dates!   Space Apps 2017 happens Saturday and Sunday, April 29th and 30th.

Locations can apply to host Space Apps starting December 8, 2016.  Here’s the link to their Facebook page for information.

In this episode of Over Coffee®, you’ll hear:

• How Beth’s background nurtured her disruptive-thinking perspective and talents;

• How the 80-20 ratio of men to women in Space Apps led to the creation of Data Bootcamp;

• How Beth’s research findings laid the foundations for engaging more women in Space Apps;

• Some new Space Apps participants’ experiences, after Data Bootcamp;

• Beth’s recommendations for girls’ education for their future careers;

• Some resources for new coders, to learn coding;

• Beth’s observations about the reasons women may hesitate to try something new;

• The trends she sees for innovators on the cutting edge of something new;

• How Beth’s current dissertation explores innovation and creativity;

• Why chaos and a difficult innovative process are okay;

• How the Data Bootcamp has grown since its start in 2015;

• Some new Data Bootcamp tools for 2016;

• AND–a  NASA innovation for “citizen scientists”, announced during 2016 Data Bootcamp!