Recoding stories: the power of inclusive books at scale | Komal Singh | TEDxKitchenerED

Summary

In this video, a woman recounts a moment when her daughter, noticing her all-male colleagues during a conference call, assumed all engineers are boys. She reflects on the importance of diverse representation in children's books, highlighting the lack of characters of color and STEM themes. The speaker discusses her initiative at Google to create inclusive stories, like 'Ara the Star Engineer,' to inspire girls and minorities. By using technology, such as AI and VR, she aims to empower children to see themselves as future leaders and change-makers in various fields.

Takeaways

• 👧 Children notice gender representation in professions from a young age, as shown by the daughter's observation that all engineers are boys.
• 📚 Less than 5% of children's books feature characters of color in lead roles, and less than 1% are themed on STEM or sports adventures.
• 🤔 Books shape children's understanding of the world and can influence their career aspirations and self-perception.
• 👩‍🔧 Women are underrepresented in tech, comprising only about 20-25% of the workforce and less than 5% of tech founders.
• 🧠 Research shows girls start doubting their STEM intelligence by age 6 due to social conditioning, not lack of ability.
• 📖 The speaker created 'Ara the Star Engineer' to inspire young girls, featuring a diverse cast of female engineers.
• 🌐 The book 'Ara the Star Engineer' has been translated into over 10 languages and inspired children globally.
• 🚀 Technology can enhance storytelling, such as using AI to customize book characters to reflect the reader's appearance.
• 💪 Inclusive stories can empower children to envision themselves as leaders and innovators in various fields.
• 📈 The impact of inclusive storytelling is evident in the positive responses and aspirations of children who have read 'Ara the Star Engineer'.

Q & A

What was the pivotal moment that led the speaker to realize the importance of gender representation in the tech industry?

The pivotal moment was when the speaker's four-year-old daughter observed during a conference call that all the engineers she saw were boys, highlighting a lack of gender diversity that the speaker had previously overlooked.

Why did the speaker feel that children's books play a crucial role in shaping perceptions about professions?

The speaker believes that children's books are important because they feed children's curiosity and can influence their career choices. If books lack diverse characters, children may develop biases and limited perceptions about who can excel in certain fields.

What percentage of children's books feature characters of color in lead roles according to the script?

Less than 5% of children's books feature characters of color in lead roles.

How does the lack of diversity in children's books relate to the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields?

The lack of diversity in children's books can contribute to the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields by reinforcing traditional gender roles and failing to inspire girls to pursue interests in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

What was the speaker's personal realization about the impact of book characters on her career choices?

The speaker realized that if the characters in her favorite books had looked like her, it might have propelled her to be a more confident dreamer, risk-taker, and leader in her tech career.

What project did the speaker undertake at Google to address the issue of diversity in children's books?

The speaker undertook a passion project at Google to reimagine books and create inclusive stories at scale using technology, starting with the book 'Ara, the Star Engineer'.

What is the main theme of the book 'Ara, the Star Engineer'?

The main theme of 'Ara, the Star Engineer' is about a young girl of color who wants to solve the problem of counting all the stars in the sky, meeting diverse, real-life women engineers along the way, and learning computing concepts.

How did the speaker and her team enhance the storytelling experience to make it more engaging for children?

They enhanced the storytelling experience by creating modalities such as virtual reality, 3D experiences, and a voice-assistant-enabled story time that triggers sound and light effects as the story is read.

What is the 'Ara Effect' mentioned by the speaker?

The 'Ara Effect' refers to the impact the book 'Ara, the Star Engineer' has had on children, inspiring them to see themselves as engineers and problem solvers, similar to the 'Scully Effect' which inspired girls to pursue careers in STEM after watching Dana Scully on 'The X-Files'.

How does the speaker suggest using technology to make classic stories more inclusive?

The speaker suggests using artificial intelligence to render protagonists in books to look like the reader, allowing children to visualize themselves as the heroes of the story, making the stories more relatable and empowering.

What is the speaker's call to action for different groups to help increase diversity in children's literature?

The speaker calls on creative tech professionals to create new ways to make stories inclusive at scale, workplaces to integrate inclusive storytelling early in children's lives, and book lovers to choose books that empower children to be heroes in their own stories.

Outlines

00:00

👶 Recognizing Gender Bias Early

A mother recounts an incident where her young daughter noticed that all the engineers in her virtual meeting were men. This led the mother to reflect on how children quickly pick up societal patterns and stereotypes. The paragraph discusses the importance of diverse representation in children's literature to combat early gender biases.

05:01

📚 Reimagining Storytelling

The author emphasizes the need to update children's books to include diverse characters and stories that reflect the readers' experiences. She shares her passion project at Google, creating inclusive stories using technology. The first result was 'Ara, the Star Engineer,' a book featuring a young girl of color solving problems with real-life women engineers as her guides. The story expanded into VR and voice-assisted formats to make it even more engaging.

10:02

✨ The Power of Inclusive Stories

The paragraph highlights the significant impact of inclusive storytelling, illustrated by the widespread positive response to 'Ara, the Star Engineer.' It recounts various anecdotes of children inspired by the book to pursue engineering and create their own stories. The author underscores the potential of inclusive books to inspire and empower children globally.

Keywords

💡Gender Bias

Gender bias refers to the preconceived notions and stereotypes about the roles and capabilities of different genders. In the video, the speaker's daughter assumes that all engineers are boys, highlighting the prevalent gender bias that associates engineering with men. The speaker's goal is to challenge and change these biases, particularly through inclusive storytelling.

💡Diversity in Tech

Diversity in tech refers to the inclusion of people from various genders, races, and backgrounds in the technology industry. The speaker emphasizes the underrepresentation of women, particularly women of color, in engineering and tech roles. By creating characters like Ara, the speaker aims to inspire more diverse participation in tech fields.

💡Inclusive Storytelling

Inclusive storytelling involves creating narratives that represent a wide range of characters and experiences, reflecting the diversity of the real world. The speaker argues that children's books should feature diverse characters to help all children see themselves as potential leaders and professionals, such as engineers. This concept is exemplified by the book 'Ara the Star Engineer.'

💡Role Models

Role models are individuals who serve as examples to others, particularly young people. The video discusses how the lack of female role models in tech can deter girls from pursuing careers in this field. The speaker's initiative to feature real-life women engineers as characters in children's books aims to provide positive role models for girls.

💡Social Conditioning

Social conditioning refers to the process by which individuals learn and internalize societal norms and expectations. The speaker mentions that girls start doubting their intelligence in STEM fields due to social conditioning, which begins at a young age. The speaker advocates for changing this conditioning through more inclusive stories and diverse role models.

💡STEM Education

STEM education focuses on teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The speaker highlights the importance of encouraging girls to pursue STEM education and careers. Books like 'Ara the Star Engineer' are tools to inspire interest in STEM subjects by presenting them in an engaging and relatable way.

💡Empowerment

Empowerment involves providing individuals with the tools, confidence, and opportunities to achieve their potential. The speaker aims to empower young girls by providing them with stories where they can see themselves as capable and intelligent engineers. This empowerment is crucial for increasing diversity in tech and other fields.

💡Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome is the feeling of self-doubt and insecurity about one's abilities, often experienced by high-achieving individuals. The speaker, a woman in tech, mentions struggling with impostor syndrome and wonders if more representation in books could have helped her overcome it. Addressing impostor syndrome is part of the broader goal of empowering women in tech.

💡Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines. The speaker discusses using AI to customize characters in children's books so that they resemble the children reading them. This use of AI helps create more inclusive and relatable stories, reinforcing the message that anyone can be a hero or an engineer.

💡Cultural Representation

Cultural representation involves depicting diverse cultures and backgrounds accurately and respectfully. The speaker highlights the importance of including characters of various races, genders, and backgrounds in children's books. This representation helps children from different cultures see themselves in stories, fostering a sense of belonging and possibility.

Highlights

A four-year-old girl questions why all engineers are boys, revealing early gender bias.

The speaker realizes she is the only woman in her engineering team.

Less than 5% of kids' books feature characters of color in lead roles.

Only 1% of kids' books are themed on STEM or sports adventures.

The speaker attributes her career in tech to books like 'The Alchemist' and 'The Little Prince.'

Representation in books could help reduce impostor syndrome and encourage bold leadership.

Diversifying characters in children's books can empower future leaders.

Less than 25% of the tech workforce are women, and less than 5% of tech founders are women.

Girls start doubting their intelligence in STEM by age 6 due to social conditioning.

The speaker created 'Ara, the Star Engineer' to inspire girls to pursue STEM.

'Ara, the Star Engineer' features real-life women engineers and teaches computing concepts.

The book was adapted into virtual reality and 3D formats for a more engaging experience.

Artificial Intelligence was used to make book characters resemble the readers.

The Scully effect: over 70% of girls who watched Dana Scully pursued STEM careers.

The speaker has observed the 'Ara effect,' with children around the world inspired to pursue STEM.

Inclusive stories can lead to big societal changes by inspiring young readers.

The speaker encourages creating new ways to make stories inclusive at scale.

Parents and book lovers are urged to choose inclusive books for their children.

Transcripts

[Music]

oh mama all engineers are boys how would

you feel if your four-year-old daughters

said this to you

once upon a time I was working from home

as my daughter was unwell she was

sitting right next to me and I was at a

conference call she could see the

brilliant faces of all of my brilliant

colleagues and then in sheer curiosity

typical of any four-year-old asked me

who those faces were and what they did

as most of us with kids and conference

calls are guilty of doing I put myself

on hold and I started explaining to her

oh that's Kurt he's my manager and he's

a software engineer

that's Erik he sits right next to me and

he's a software engineer

that's Alex we're working on a project

together and he's a software engineer

too as I got to the fourth and fifth she

interrupted me and said oh mama

so all engineers are boys I was stunned

amused and bummed she was noticing

something that I had conditioned myself

to ignore that I was the only woman in

the room well in this case a virtual

room factors women in tech and more

specifically women in engineering are a

bit of a minority and children are very

clever parsers of patterns they see the

world through eyes that are not

preconditioned so where do they get this

conditioning from let's think about the

books the stories that we read to our

children less than 5% of kids books

feature characters of color in lead

roles further the content of books tends

to be based on traditional gendered

professions less than 1% of kids books

are themed on stem or sports adventures

so why is it important that books do

something at all we were all kids once

what were some of your favorite books

for me books like The Alchemist and the

lil prince made me wonder about the

origins of everything they fed my

curiosity that would eventually create a

career in tech for me so then why is it

even important that characters and books

look like us as I think of myself today

sometimes a bit of a hesitant leader

sometimes with a bit of an impostor

syndrome I wonder I wonder if the

characters in my favorite books had

looked like me how that would have

propelled me to be a bold dreamer a

risk-taker a non hesitant leader stories

are not just figments of imagination

there are also mediums of manifestation

I believe by diversifying characters and

voices in children's books we can

empower little readers to envision

themselves as future leaders because

missing characters in books translate to

missing leaders in Bodrum labs and

sports fields and our world needs all of

them as a mother of two a woman in tech

a person of color and a first-generation

immigrant I care very deeply that the

race and color and gender of my children

is not a deterrent to their dreams I

want to bust this bias not just for my

kids but for all kids I want us all to

imagine a world where every child is the

hero of the storybook

what if Alice on her way to wonderland

had a propensity towards mathematical

adventures

what if Goldilocks had beautiful black

hair with tinges of gold when the moon

hit it what if the mother in child and

good night moon weren't actually

biologically related

I love these stories they have beautiful

life lessons but I think we can amplify

these lessons

make them more relatable by putting our

kids into them there are eight different

parts of the brain that get triggered

when children read stories books are

pathways into their neural networks

where the reinforced patterns but also

where the form biases we need to rethink

the books that we read to our children

we also need to reimagine the

storytelling experience for it to stay

relevant in today's digitally evolving

world we can't really go back and change

these stories or can we I will come back

to that

you see Tec is my hood this is what I

studied and this is what I've been

working in for the past 15 years

but sadly women are only about 20 25

percent of the tech workforce what's

more concerning is that less than 5% of

tech founders the original creators of

technological products are women

research tells us that girls start

doubting their intelligence in stem by

the time they're 6 years old not due to

lack of intelligence or ability or

skills but due to social conditioning

why is this the case could it start with

something as simple as the stories we

are choosing for our girls and our

daughters and so I took up a passion

project

at my workplace Google with the intent

to use technology to reimagine books to

create inclusive stories at scale in

order to real 'evil inspiration for kids

and as a first step was born the book

ara

the star engineer a story of smarts and

grit where a young girl of color ara

wants to solve a big problem of counting

all the stars in the sky but is not sure

how along the way she meets superheroes

characters based on real-life women

engineers of diverse backgrounds who

teach her computing concepts in the end

ara and her sidekick droid didi discover

a cool algorithm to solve any big

problem an algorithm comprised of

courage creativity coding and

collaboration my colleagues and I then

went on to create various other

modalities for the storytelling

experience to stay relevant and

relatable and inspiring and magical we

made the book traveled beyond paper to a

world of virtual reality and 3d we saw

kids gawk at the enormousness of a data

center and the tiny nosov a processor

chip experiencing stories in VR can

sometimes create a level of awe and

learning which isn't always attainable

in 2d we created a voice assistant

enabled story time so as parents and

children read books together words in

the narrative triggers sound effects and

light effects really bringing the story

to life this allowed kids to make very

unique sensory associations such as

debugging software is something that

produces typing sounds it has nothing to

do with squashing bugs or bees remember

when I spoke about being able to rewrite

our classics or recode our classics we

are now experimenting with artificial

intelligence AI to render protagonists

in books the heroes in books to look

like the reader reading the book so that

the hero of the book does not default to

white or brown or black but to the child

reading the book

we used a I to make ARRA look like that

little girl who happens to have leukemia

but has probably never seen herself in a

book before or that girl for whom her

green hair is a very strong part of her

identity or that girl who's proud to

wear her hijab or that girl who wants to

own her mixed indigenous roots more

deeply technology is a tool that can be

used to reimagine our classics rather

than replace them we can use tech to

give children the power to visualize

themselves as the hero of the story and

of real life the stories we read as kids

correlate with the reality we manifest

as adults I grew up in India in the 80s

sitting under mango trees and reading

science fiction listening to Bollywood

songs and solving physics equations

while studying computer science

I would visualize the internals of a

computer as Alice in Wonderland racing

with processor chips and reasoning with

circuit boards

I was also that kid who worshipped Dana

Scully

from x-files and mr. Spock from Star

Trek there is even a phenomena dubbed as

the Scully effect a research that showed

more than 70% of the girls who grew up

watching Scully landed careers in stem

I'm a live outcome of the Scully effect

heck even my master's thesis was based

on computational criminology how

desperate was I to be like Spock and

Scully similar to the Scully effect I

have now seen a glimmer of the ära

effect in action around the world since

the book launched a year ago it is being

translated in 10 plus languages and

countries around

the world this is a story from a young

girl of Hispanic background who lives in

the Bronx she was so inspired by the

book she wrote her own book called

Isabella the space engineer and wants to

be one this is GN from Beijing who when

asked to draw what an engineer looks

like drew a picture of her own self here

are two girls one from Canada and one

from Australia who both dressed up as

their favorite character ara the

engineer ready to solve problems here's

a girls robotics team in Portugal that

actually built encoded a real robot and

named it D D based on the robot in the

book so many children from around the

world who sent us stories here's one

from a girl who wants to create nanobots

that enter human brain to cure diseases

and also flying nanobots that go into

alien lands that bring back cures for

diseases my daughter and I were at the

Shanghai Book Fair for the launch of the

book in China and a journalist here

asked her what do you want to be when

you grow up oh I want to be an author

and an engineer was her instant reply

this is the power of inclusive

characters in books

if one book could do so much what if we

had ten a hundred or all of our classics

what could inclusive stories at scale

achieve so in order to solve big

problems for the world let's not

overlook the importance of something

very simple and pure story books if you

are one of those creative techie types

why not create new ways and mediums to

make stories inclusive at scale if you

are trying to solve the diversity

problem in the workplace

why not

more of such initiatives that bring

inclusive storytelling into the lives of

kids very early on when they're six

years old not 26 or 16 and if you are a

book lover why not choose to read those

books to our kids that can empower them

to be the hero at whatever they choose

so that all of our daughters and girls

can see and believe that engineers are

just people thank you

[Applause]