One-on-One
Digital Sisters Receive Leadership Award
By Lango Deen
Oct 21, 2003, 09:45

Ruth L. Goins, chair , Board of Directors, W AW F presents award to Shireen Mitchell, founder and executive officer, Digital Sisters, Inc. (photo courtesy of Kate Dixon, zandara.net)

Digital Sisters, Inc. ( http://www.digital-sistas.org/ ), a volunteer-driven organization promoting and providing technology education and enrichment for girls and women of color, was honored at the 2003 Washington Area Women's Foundation's Leadership Awards, held October 1 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C.

Digital Sisters joins 49 other organizations addressing the critical needs of women that have received Leadership Awards from the foundation since 1998. WAWF is dedicated to increasing resources and opportunities for women and girls in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

Digital Sisters now serves more than 300 girls and women through programs such as: Girls Tech Clubs which offer classes on online safety, 'Netiquette, basic hypertext markup language (HTML), and building Web pages; the Financial Tech Literacy program, recently extended to several local high schools, which provides basic financial and economic literacy using technology; the Working Mothers Web Team, in which moms from diverse backgrounds learn basic Web development, strengthen their technology skills, and become confident in sharing their knowledge with their children; and the Digital Resource Program, which offers 24-hour access to resources, news, events, classes, and information for communities, educators, parents, women, and girls.

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photo courtesy of Colella Photography

"The Leadership Award itself acknowledges the work that we've been doing, particularly around women and girls in technology," says Shireen Mitchell, founder and executive officer of Digital Sister, Inc. "With the award, two things happened…. One is the awareness we needed."

With increased public awareness of the organization and with awards such as WAWF's, Mitchell says, Digital Sisters will be able to expand in a number of ways.

One way, she says, would be by working strategically with other organizations for women and girls to spread Digital Sisters' work from the local to the national level.

"We're one organization in one location of the country," says Mitchell, "The issues, however, are national, international, and there needs to be a way to focus on them across the board.

"We truly consider ourselves a technology social service agency...." she continues. "The bottom line is we use technology for social change."

With more than 20 years of "technology social services" experience, Mitchell has been described as one of the most inspiring people leading the community technology movement in the D.C. area. Last summer, she was elected to the board of the Community Technology Centers (CTC) Network, an organization with more than 1,000 CTCs world-wide.

She is also one of the drivers behind Techno Rodeo, a local competition that brings together young people in D.C.'s Columbia Heights and Shaw neighborhoods for a multimedia exposition. Participants submit projects in one of five categories: video, digital music, animation, computer graphics, and Web page design. A panel of judges selects the most creative and original logos, music tracks, and public service announcements. There are also a number of how-to demos on subjects ranging from computer repair to computer animation. Young people also have the opportunity to compete in a number of on-site challenges, including Mitchell's "TechnoDemic" fast-paced game show, a cross between "It's Academic" and "Jeopardy," with tech-related questions, including women's contributions to technology, answered under a time deadline.

"Someone once said, 'Technology is the language of the 21st century,' " says Mitchell. "We want to make sure we are leaving no one behind with our initiatives, particularly women and girls."

Digital Sisters, Inc. also holds an annual virtual volunteering event.