Our second meet up was graced upon by Dr. Miriam Masullo and Dr. Meryl Price of IBM Watson Lab
Our speakers
Dr. Miriam Masullo
Dr Masullo has made major contribution towards the digital libraries and its use for education. She believed that a delay in access of certain documents may kill the curiosity in the person looking for it. She pitched the idea to NSF for digital video on demand and digital videos for education, went around Washington to get permissions and videos from various institutes.
NASA offered videos of the Hubble readily which were extremely helpful.
In Dr. Masullo’s words-
” If I had a tablet then, I would have changed the world”
Digitalization improved teaching and it is Dr. Masullo’s idea to do this at every level in every grade.
A remarkable thing here, Dr Masullo’s proposal was taken to congress and the telecomm act was revised. The subsequent Washington post headline was “Wow”! Dr. Masullo published her work and also presented it in Singapore
It is Dr. Masullo’s magnanimity that she never patented her work because she wanted her idea to be open to who wanted to implement it and bring improvement to digitization of education. The project was titled “edu port”
Dr. Masullo worked at Verizon but felt like there is more she had to do. She was the only person back then who could work with a combination of AI and mainframe.
Dr. Masullo also ran for congress and senate, is a powerhouse of women empowerment and an inspiration to all the aspiring women in science.
She says:
“Through my attempt to digitize libraries, I made enough noise to last a lifetime”
Dr. Meryl Price, a writer at IBM, Dr. Masullo’s dear friend also honored us with her gracious presence. Dr Price’s price and Dr. Masullo’s common dedication towards education brought them together and they worked to introduce the first ever teaching tool for first and second graders called the IBM PC junior
Our day started with hot chocolate and coffee and the famous lawyer joke from Dr. Price
Dr. Masullo recalled her experiences about being a woman in science. She says, publish everything you do. It should be something useful and significant. But also remember you cannot always please everyone.
She shared statistics about how women number in stem is rapidly growing and that it is a great improvement.
The most important thing which Dr. Masullo pointed out is that 75% of all the growing jobs depend on mastery of mathematics.
Some excerpts from our meet-up
You will constantly be competing.
You should not be intimidated.
If you hold your own skills and believe in your talents, you will be a part of the change in reality
You should also mentor others and share your skills by being their role model and giving them hope.
Emotional intelligence:
Dr. Masullo pointed out some interesting facts about women, we are not emotionally intelligent and tend to stress ourselves out and take failure really hard. She says people with emotional intelligence tend to succeed better.
The day progressed with many more of such important facts Dr. Masullo pointed out and shared with us
In conclusion, Dr. Masullo concluded with the inspiring words, leaving us all soaked in warmth of hope courage and renewed belief in ourselves.
Be the change you want to see
If not you, then who?
If not now, when?
We had a lot to take away from our honored guests and thank them from the bottom of our hearts for spending time with us
