This document discusses creating a personal vision and the journey of founding Tekspark, a nonprofit aimed at increasing diversity in STEM. It begins with the author's initial goals of learning about leadership and business involvement. Various steps were taken like entrepreneurship courses and leadership roles. A vision for Tekspark was to increase women in STEM by 5% by 2020 through activities like mentorship, panels and hackathons engaged at the grassroots level with schools. The vision and mission evolved over time with validation and networking, and so far partnerships and events have been launched while scaling up efforts.
9. My initial goals
Learn about leadership and entrepreneurship
Increasing involvement in business
Increasing involvement with customers and partners
10. Some Steps
Enrolled in entrepreneurship courses
Moved to organizational leadership roles
Increasing participation in business leadership
Founded a non-profit
Advisor to startups
Attend meet-ups that touch upon entrepreneurship
15. I not only use all the brains I
can have, but all the brains I
can borrow
18. In Summary
Know yourself
Set a personal vision you can believe in
Listen, especially to counter-points
Leverage resources, know constraints
Identify the observable/measurable goal or result
Influence to achieve your vision
Embrace change, adapt and course-correct quickly
Dont be afraid to fail!
20. Tekspark
Non-profit for STEM diversity
Grassroots Engagement middle/high schools
Spread the joy of STEM in formative years
Still in the early part of the journey
22. Mission
Catalyze progress towards a world with more
diverse STEM presence, and empowering
technology with diversity. Tekspark aims to
engage with schools, universities and the
industry at the grassroots level in promoting
the choice of STEM for people with diverse,
racial and ethnic backgrounds
23. How it evolved
Initially, just the passion
What did I want to see differently
What is the unsolved problem this would solve?
Did I feel convinced?
More validation of ideas
Leveraged network
27. Journey So Far
Three high school partnerships launched
15 mentors enrolled
2 panel discussions held
One contest conducted
Target this year
30+ mentors
Hack-a-thon involving multiple high schools
More panel discussions
Survey before and after school year
#5: Dad mechanical engineer, experimented with entrepreneurship failed sometimes, succeeded sometimes. Head of school. Everyone I interact with influences how I think.
#7: What are you naturally drawn towards these could be activities or people. What do you admire? How do you picture yourself in 10-20 years from now. Examples from my experience that continues even now. Once you see this, then the how etc. are details.
#8: What do you want to change in the world (business or in the community)?
Do you see a picture that you can truly believe in? Only then this can become a vision that you can pursue with passion.
#11: Direct customer interaction at Mindflash, direct partner interaction at Roku
#12: Key aspects of leadership are the same as key aspects of vision
Also each of us needs to be a leader in achieving our vision and take control
#14: There is no right or wrong decision, there is only best decision with the information you know at the time.
#17: Your assumptions when you had thought of your vision will change, the key question is how you can adapt to the change and still keep at your vision.
#18: How do you make things happen with the resources and constraints you have
#22: Vision needs to have a clearly observable/measurable impact associated with it.
#24: In the role of being a mentor and working with both men and women, noticed some patterns that seemed to me to be self-limiting. There is a whole range of social and other external factors that need to be addressed but I was very fascinated by the psychological factors that seemed to be self-limiting.
Differently more meeting rooms with more women, more women staying on the job and being able to grow just the same as men, more women in decision-making positions and more women mentoring, networking and helping each other. I believed that this is all about instilling the passion and joy of STEM at an early age.
#25: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Siberia and a Nobel Peace Prize Winner
#26: 30 mentors this year, 100 next year growing to thousands over time
#27: Different segments had varied needs. Also mentorship came to the top rather than technical information.
Difficulty getting partnerships with schools and libraries than I had initially assumed, had to work hard to get people equally passionate about the cause that could go above and beyond.
There is a lot of untapped energy space and time decoupling helps with promoting participation.