The Future of Science is Female. Zara Stone

      Nailbot Machine Illustration Courtesy of: Pree Walia

      When “Preemadonnas” really dig the tech, she links them with Maker Girl Mentors, where she’s on the board. They encourage girls to get into tech and leadership roles in STE(A)M with mentoring and career help.

      Pree beta-tested her build-it-yourself Nailbot maker kit with a number of her ambassadors. Making it involves soldering and playing with circuit boards. The kids have taken anywhere from ninety minutes to five hours to make it, she said. Her long-term vision is that Preemadonna girls can build applications on top of the Nailbot, but she also wants the program open to designers, makers, hackers—the full STEAM gamut.

      ***

      Today, everything changes so quickly. The good and the bad. People are more accepting, more comfortable, more open. But then there’s the growth of online trolls, the dark side of the internet, and people using tech for bad.

      We need to look back to learn how far we’ve come. Take the 1992 Talking Barbie doll, dressed in a rainbow rockabilly skirt, with crimped hair and a tie-dyed denim jacket. The user pressed a button on her back and she chirped out her lines. “Math class is tough! Party dresses are fun. Do you have a crush on anyone? Math class is tough!” Even in those dark ages, this was not okay, and she was quickly recalled. But it took Barbie a long time to get with it—over the years, her careers have included working as a model, a ballerina, a McDonald’s server (fo’ real), and Miss America.

      She joined the twenty-first century in 2012 with the release of computer engineer Barbie, complete with pink glasses and a pink laptop, and in 2017 the Barbie drone was a Christmas sellout with kids. Today, there are Barbie-branded online coding classes, AI interfaces in Barbie’s Dreamhouse, and a Barbie coding curriculum for schools. Their message: it’s okay to code and be cute, if that’s what you want.

      Caring about how things look used to be considered a vain, “girly” trait. But smart scientists have proved there’s value in this. It’s more than vanity; it’s about enjoying the world around us and learning from each experience.