FALL 2016NOVEMBER

The 4th Astra S.T.E.A.M. SummitAstra Women’s Business Alliance

TABLE OF CONTENTSLetter From Astra

Astra S.T.E.A.M. Overview

Fall 2016 Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit

Our Next Step

Special Thanks

Welcome to the 4th Astra STEAM Summit here at the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Washington. We are excited about presenting to you our group young talented girls together with women business owners, corporation and agency leaders to provide education and mentoring on business development in the STEAM industries.

We thank Fernando Hernandez, Director of Global Supplier Diversity and Sustainability and Astra Board Chair, who has been a major factor in the growth of our Astra S.T.E.A.M. program by providing valuable resources and cash awards for the winning teams. Through the joint visions of Fernando and Diane McClelland, Astra President-Co Founder, this program continues to grow with goals to inspire and empower young women to develop innovative ideas for new businesses in STEAM fields as future supply chain solutions for both small and large businesses globally. We thank our founding sponsors, Microsoft, CB Technologies, Inc., Diversity in STEAM Magazine and AKRAYA and new sponsors, AMPCUS, Inc., Bishop-Wisecarver Group, Hunter-Hawk Inc. and Pacific Gas & Electric Company for their support.

Words cannot express how excited we are to bring you another Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit that empowers more young women to pursue their dreams in S.T.E.A.M. fields and entrepreneurship. We welcome the parents and guardians of our young entrepreneurs and we thank them for supporting their daughters to follow their dreams. Based on research, STEAM-related jobs will grow 17% by 2018 with less than 40% of graduates receive a STEAM degree. Moreover, only 10% of STEAM college degrees are awarded to women; Currently, US women make up only 20% of the STEAM workforce. These are the reasons why programs and organizations like Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program are here to inspire, empower, and support young women in STEAM fields and entrepreneurship. Through our endless efforts, we’d like to see more women in STEAM workforce, change the gender roles, and break the glass ceilings.

Thank you to Willamette University Atkinson Graduate School of Management and Jason Tokarski of Mountain West Investment of Salem, Oregon whose donations support the paid internships of three MBA students who have served as Project Leads for the Astra S.T.E.A.M. program. We want you to help us thank Ina Song, who is our current 2016 Program Lead. She has been an incredible S.T.E.A.M. leader who has created our social media presence and works so closely with our STEAMERs both as Alums and new recruits. She has been our first project lead to manage two Astra S.T.E.A.M. summits in one year. Our goal is to expand this program through ourSTEAM in a Box™ and take this nationally and globally.

We welcome James T Evans, University of Washington, Lynn Reddrick, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Fernando Hernandez, Microsoft who will be Judges for the Pitch Perfectly Panel and hear all the presentations.

We are grateful for our speakers, Kate Edwards, International Game Developers Association; Megan Gaiser, Contagious Creativity, Holly Moore and Mary Steves, Growing Leaders, and our Astra WBEs. Pamela Kan, Bishop-Wisecarver Group, Marti Hoffer, Lumenomics, Rachel Pereira. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Madhavi Gosalia, Microsoft, Joel Gillespie, Microsoft, Neil Barnett, Microsoft, Judy Bongi, Microsoft, Ally Wilson, Microsoft, and Rebecca O’Connor, Microsoft.

Astra Women’s Business Alliance believes in the power of togetherness. Together we grow, together we lead, and together we inspire and empower more women to realize the values and creative mindshare they can bring to the STEAM fields. We encourage women to reach for the stars.

“If you want to go quickly, go alone; If you want to go far, go together.”

- African Proverb

Diane McClelland President

Astra Women’s Business Alliance

Suzanne Lackman Vice President

Astra Women’s Business Alliance

Ina Song Program Lead

Astra Women’s Business Alliance

ASTRA S.T.E.A.M. OVERVIEWAstra S.T.E.A.M. Program started in 2014 by Diane McClelland and Suzanne Lackman, the Co-founders of Astra Women’s Business Alliance, with a mission to equip young women with the confidence, skills, and the network to successfully pursue S.T.E.A.M. education and careers. Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program believes that the young women today are the future leaders, visionaries, and CEOs of tomorrow. The Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program takes a holistic, pathways approach to S.T.E.A.M. Education. Following a pathways approach, encourages a shift in focus from numbers of people in S.T.E.A.M. jobs and people with S.T.E.A.M. degrees to focusing on equipping individuals, specifically girls, with the skills needed to thrive and grow in the workforce.

“Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program believes the young women today are the future leaders, visionaries, and

CEOs of tomorrow.”The main event for Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program is its annual Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit. So far, Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program has organized four successful Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summits and served a total of 75 STEAMers plus their parents. These STEAMers are from all over the U.S. including the following eight states: California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Virginia, Montana, and Connecticut.

FALL 2016 ASTRA S.T.E.A.M. SUMMIT NOVEMBER 2-3, 2016 | MICROSOFT CAMPUS | REDMOND, WASHINGTON

Founded in 2003 by Dr. Tim Elmore, Growing Leaders is a global nonprofit that encourages and equips young adults to take on real-life opportunities and challenges in the classroom, in their careers, and in the community.

Growing Leaders partners with organizations to teach practical life and leadership skills using real stories, intriguing images, and engaging experiences that are relatable and memorable.

This fall, Astra partnered with Growing Leaders for our Fall 2016 Astra STEAM Summit. We welcomed Holly Moore, Vice President at Growing Leaders, and Mary Steves, Program Coordinator at Growing Leaders, for interactive presentations to both our STEAMers and parents on Habitude and Artificial Maturity.

- WOMEN ENTREPRENEUR PANEL - - WOMEN IN S.T.E.A.M. PANEL -

“It is important to have an attitude of loving to learn if you are going to run a company.”

-Pamela Kan, President, Bishop-Wisecarver Group

Access and exposure to role models is important because visualizing or seeing people who achieve positive can raise one’s self-efficacy, the belief that he or she too can achieve those outcomes. Astra invites successful women entrepreneurs to teach STEAMers important entrepreneurial traits through their own experience. This Fall, we welcomed Pamela Kan, president of Bishop-Wisecarver Group, and Marti Hoffer, CEO of Lumenomics.

Early interest in S.T.E.A.M. is positively related to students’ desire to major in S.T.E.A.M. fields in college. Each summit, Astra brings a panel of representatives from major corporations to speak to STEAMers about different career possibilities within STEAM industries.

This year we welcomed Kate Edwards, Executive Director of International Game Developers Association; Madhavi Gosalia, Senior Category Manager at Microsoft; Annie Forrester, Director of Business Development of Ampcus, Inc; Rachel Pereira, Technology Architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

- FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MEGAN GAISER -

As Principal of Contagious Creativity, Gaiser guides technology and entertainment companies to create meaning and money. She serves as a senior creative leader, advisor and director for inspired computing experience across films, games & VR/AR. She recently designed the Quantum Creativity Leadership Summit for senior executives in Techno logy and Gaming to ga ther wi th multidisciplinary experts to showcase the efficacy of creative leadership to genuinely welcome diverse people and perspectives. She also serves as the Creative Leadership & Diversity Evangelist for several gaming non-profits.

As one of the first female CEO’s in the gaming industry, Gaiser spent the last 15 years experiencing the game industry as both an insider, and an outsider. This unique vantage point enabled her to not only sidestep the outdated habits of the game industry, but to create and capture the girl market that had been left behind. Dubbed by the NYT as ‘The UnBarbie’ of computer games, Gaiser grew Her Interactive to $8.5M in revenues, sold 9M units and won 29 Parent’s Choice Gold Medal awards by co-creating the highly successful Nancy Drew game franchise. In partnership with her team, she was responsible for co-creating intelligent games for girls and women.

For over a decade, the company enjoyed an inclusive culture resulting in inspired employees, customers, award-winning products, yearly revenue growth and little competition for a long time. Gaiser gained a reputation for identifying and engaging unproven markets, inspiring collaboration and a commitment to the highest artistic and aesthetic qualities. Awards include: “Game Industry’s 100 Most Influential Women” Next Generation; “Top 10 Most Influential Women of the Decade” Gaming Angels and “2011 Indie Cade Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award.”

- PITCH PERFECTLY JUDGE PANEL - Hands-on learning approach improves retention of information and critical thinking skills and increase persistence of students in S.T.E.A.M. majors, with our new venture competition, STEAMers gain first-hand knowledge on how to start a business and develop an app. Twenty STEAMers are divided into four teams of five, and these teams are assigned with the task to come up with a pitch for their new innovative business and app idea. Astra invited James T Evans from University of Washington, Lynn Reddrick from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Fernando Hernandez from Microsoft as Judges for the Pitch Perfectly Competition. These judges participate in Q&A after each pitch, rank STEAMer teams base on their ideas and performance, and provide candid feedbacks for all STEAMer teams.

- FALL 2016 ASTRA STEAMER INSIGHTS -

In November 2016, at Astra’s 4th Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit, we welcomed twenty STEAMers. All STEAMers are from different and diverse backgrounds. 65% of the 2016 STEAMers are minorities including six South Asians or Indian Americans, three East Asian Americans, two Latino or Hispanic American, one Middle Eastern or Arab American, and one Multi Racial.

3

2

11

7

6

EastAsianAsianAmerican

LatinoorHispanicAmerican

MiddleEasternorArabAmerican

Multi-Racial

Non-HispanicWhiteorEuro-American

SouthAsianorIndianAmerican

50% of the STEAMers are achieving 4.0 GPAs. All twenty STEAMers have extensive background and knowledge in S.T.E.A.M. subjects and entrepreneurship. Some of them have attended other S.T.E.A.M. programs, such as Hackathons and GirlsWhoCode, and many of them are taking leadership roles with local clubs and societies. The ages of these 19 STEAMers range from 13 to 17 years old. 13 STEAMers are in 8th grade, 3 in 9th grade, 3 in 10th grade, and 1 in 11th grade. When forming the STEAMer teams, we have made sure to divide the team evenly by analyzing their age and experience with S.T.E.A.M. subjects and entrepreneurship.

The average GPA of these twenty STEAMers is 3.93 on a 4.0 system.

These STEAMers were chosen for their extraordinary academic performances and their active involvement with their community and with extra curriculums.

After our two-day summit, Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program sent out a post-event survey asking for STEAMers and parents’ feedbacks on their experience with the Fall 2016 Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit. We were able to collect twenty responses, eight STEAMers and twelve parents. All summit activities were rated with averages of above 4.0, on a scale of 1 to 5. The comments we have received were very positive and appreciative. When being asked to rate the overall experience, 78% said excellent while the other 22% said very good. At the same time, 100% indicated that they would be promoters for future Astra S.T.E.A.M. Summit.

“The STEAM Summit experience exceeded all my expectations…Thank you for the leadership and problem-solving growth opportunity you've provided to my daughter!”

- Fall 2016 STEAMer Parent

SUMMIT FEEDBACK

“I am so glad that I got a chance to participate in the fall Astra STEAM Summit! I got to meet new people with whom I could share my ideas and a platform to express my ideas. Thank you so much!”

- Fall 2016 STEAMer

We have also sent out an Alumni Association sign-up form where STEAMers can indicate what types of information they would be interested in receiving. Out of twenty STEAMers, seven have signed up via the form. And 100% of them have expressed their interested in receiving newsletter from Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program to stay updated. All of them also indicated their strong interest in being a mentor for future summits, and 100% of them said they would love to be interviewed for Alumni Spotlight.

OUR NEXT STEPBuilding a community is Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program’s long-term goal. Alumni Spotlight is our first initiative to involve STEAMer alums by sharing their stories. So far, Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program has interviewed nine STEAMer Alums. For our STEAMer Newsletter, we are planning on inviting STEAMer Alums to be the writers for the upcoming issues. 78% of the STEAMer Alumni have indicated their interest in writing for Astra S.T.E.A.M. Newsletter. This process will aid in Astra S.T.E.A.M.’s co-creation strategy.

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE MICROSOFT CORPORATIONAstra S.T.E.A.M. Program would like to extend our special thanks to the Microsoft Corporation for its continuing support of the program since day one! Microsoft is not only the largest founding sponsor of the program, but the corporation has also been very supportive in providing summit scholarships, locations, resources, speakers, and mentors. Astra S.T.E.A.M. Program was lucky to have included three Microsoft women as STEAMer mentors during the Fall 2016 Astra STEAM Summit, including: Judy Bongi - Senior Director of Outsourcing, Rebecca O’Connor - Procurement Engagement Manager, and Ally Wilson - Senior Director - Procurement Engagement MGT. We’d also like to thank Fernando Hernandez, Director of Global Supplier Diversity and Sustainability and Astra Board Chair, who has been a major factor in the growth of our Astra S.T.E.A.M. program. We thank Madhavi Gosalia, Senior Category Manager at Microsoft, as one of the Women in STEAM panelists. We thank Joel Gillespie and Glenda Dengah for helping Astra facilitate the Fall 2016 Astra STEAM Summit. We also thank Neil Barnett, Director of Corporate External Legal Affairs for the Chief Accessibility Officer, for inspiring parents about inclusive hiring programs within Microsoft.

SPECIAL THANKS TO AMPCUS INC, BISHOP-WISECARVER GROUP, AND CB TECHNOLOGIES, INC

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