We are happy to have her here. I will do a quick introduction and she is at Microsoft. But what's amazing about her and what I love and I can see your screen and I can hear you. So you're good. What I love about her is her community.You know, I, I have a special place in my heart for building community work. She's done work for Nick Wit. She has her own community uh organization that I hope she talks about. So it's really important to give back. So I will hand it over to you and uh thanks for being here and talking about following your passion.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Um So good afternoon everyone. I'm in Seattle. So it's afternoon here. Uh But I'm very happy and I'm gonna share my story in hopes that it will inspire you to also follow your passion and do what makes you happy and makes you tickle. So I'll start with my journey and please, if there are any questions that would be great to have on the chat, I'll, I'll make sure that I have some time at the end uh to answer some questions. So in terms of my jo can you hear me?

Yeah, and I can help you watch chat because I know you can't do both. I got you. Thank

you. Appreciate it. I wasn't sure. Ok. So in terms of my journey, I'm from Venezuela. I grew up there all my life. Um and it just went, you know, speaking Spanish and it was just great. And then what happened is like the hardest class that I had was English. Like, I love math, physics, chemistry, like all the sciences and sports and all that. I was awesome at it. But when it came to like English and Spanish, it was like super hard, it was super difficult. So my mom decided to send me to Florida for one year so I could learn how to speak English. And I did and I had an awesome time after middle school. Then I went back to Venezuela. I got my degree from high school and I also did the International Baccalaureate. So I came out with a high school degree from Venezuela and also from Switzerland, which is the IV where it stands. And I did not make it to the university that I wanted to make it. I was super close. You were supposed to get in with 88 points and I got 87.92. So what happened? I ended up in Germany. I went and studied my last year of high school in Berlin Germany. I felt even more in love about technology and I was like, this is just awesome. I really wanna go and study something that has to do with technology just for background.

My mom is a lawyer and my dad is an agricultural engineer. So computers wasn't necessarily something that it was instilled by my parents, but it was something that I had a passion since the beginning. I finished my high school in Germany. If you know anything about what's going on in Venezuela. It's a very sad story in terms of how the country has been going. And I have to go to make a decision and like, where do you wanna go to school? Because you cannot really come back uh to, to my country. I couldn't at that time and, and now it's even worse. So what ended up happening is that I went to school in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin. And I thought I knew snow. Uh and the funny part is because I lived in Germany and I've seen snow. I, I got this and I get to Wisconsin and it was imagine all the floors, everything just snow all the way. And I was like, I've never seen so much snow in my life. Like, how is this gonna work out? Um It did at the end, but it was very impressive, like very different uh temperatures that I was expecting. But I had an awesome time. And while at Wisconsin I had the opportunity to do two internships that helped me a lot to go into this corporate America, what it's like to have a job.

And then I also was super lucky that I got to study abroad in China, in the city of Shu Hai and got to go and see like the manufacturer like Foxconn and like where you get like batteries and a CS. And that was very fun experience to see uh how things get manufactured at mass scale and to talk uh to see the free zones. And because that was super cool, I also got to go and do research in India about tech companies, consultants and financial institution, uh financial companies that has some other business in India. And after that, I got super lucky and I got hired at Microsoft. It was an amazing opportunity that I love uh that I've been able to have and, and I'm, that's what I'm trying to do to make sure that other people have the same opportunity um that I was able to get in and what I do at Microsoft and I'll talk here because I won't talk much in the rest of the slides is I focus on actual functions.

But and what we do is to make sure that at the pr time, we provide certain tools and recommendations that makes our software and our services and products be as secure and compliant as they can be. So that's what I do uh on my main job. And then uh because of one of the as Microsoft of benefits that it has is that I could get my education for my master's while working. And so I got my master's at the University of Arizona in Information Systems uh with an emphasis in security. And the last thing I've been doing that I'll share with you is that I started my own nonprofit as Nicole mentioned, called Nuevo Foundation. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. So what's my passion because this conversation is all about passion. So my passion is being able to help others realize their full potential. And how did I found this? Like, what was it like? What triggered it? So I'll tell you three stories. The first one is, it's part of my upbringing. So growing up, my grandpa was always the kind of grandpa that would come and say, hey, be let's go and we're gonna go and donate clothes or we're gonna go and donate food, we're gonna go and buy things from like the shelters. Um And it was just like, so such a fun time when we go and actually give either our time or some sort of goods or some sort of like food or whatever it was.

But it was a fun part that it was so ingrained that to me that giving back, it was just part of like regular life and that I'm, I'm very thankful that my grandpa instilled that in me when it came to college, one of the opportunities that I thought I could help is how can I make sure that other students that maybe come from some underrepresented background have this ability to see that they can also go to college.

And so at the university, they have a program that's called Blue Gold Beginnings. And what they do is that they find students that come from low income backgrounds and they bring them to the university to spend an entire day where they get to attend classes, see the dorms. And that to me was fascinating. I did it the four years I was in college and we would bring students and talk about what it's like to be a college student. And the idea is to inspire those kids that they also go to college and they finish high school. And then at Microsoft pretty much since the get go, I've been helping out. So we have this employee resource groups uh called like Women's at Microsoft. I've been helping in that. There's another resource group for Latinos or Hispanics at Microsoft. I help with that. And also there is a group that we teach kids how to code and it's called DG Girls. And it's for also specifically. So I've been seven years at Microsoft, I helped six years likely this summer, it's not gonna be able to happen, but it was just very fun. Like I get to go and help someone to see. Hey, I can also be here and that to me like it, it just means a lot. That's how I found my passion. I know that I like it and I keep doing it and I want to do more.

So what I found my passion, I got to that place that I'm like, I'm loving what I'm doing. What did I do to take it further? So the further part that I did was to create Nuevo Foundation. And the mission that we have is to inspire kids to be curious, confident and courageous by discovering the world of STEM. And this is definitely a team effort. It was a day on a cafeteria. I invite five of my friends and I say, look, we all come to tech and because we want to change the world, we want to have an impact and we do and we do it through our services and through our products. But how about we start thinking about how can we impact humans lives? Like, how do we do that and the way that we figure and, or like the idea that I had based on the experience that I previously shared is we, we're very lucky and very fortunate. Uh We're, we're very lucky that we, we get to work at a company like Microsoft. But how do we make sure that other kids that might not have that role model or might not have that people around their surroundings that also know that tech is a field that's possible for them too.

How do we make sure that we have that impact in people's life? Crazy enough, my friends is like, it's a, it's a great idea, crazy idea. We don't know anything about how to do a nonprofit, but, you know, I, we believe in it. Let's do it. And so that was in January 2018 And the first event that we have was in January, it was in April 2018 and I'll share a story about that. So the first event, as I mentioned, I went to school in Wisconsin and I went back to Wisconsin and we brought 40 girls from a town in Wisconsin called Arcadia. So Arcadia is the hometown of a big manufacturer here in the US. And so the, the girls came to the university and there's 40 girls that were the teachers and chaperones. And I get to share my story. But before I start sharing my story, I wanted to know what was their dream job like, what's that thing that they want to do when they grow up? And so I asked that question and they were shy at the beginning. But then the first girl raises her hand and she says, I would love to work at the factory line at the manufacturer. Awesome. Second, I would love to work at the factory line and the third and the fourth and the fifth and so on.

So I share my story, share how cool it is to work in tech, what you can do with code, how long, how far it can take you in your career. I taught them how to do uh coding with the turtle. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a library where you can use Python and you have the turtle that you make your move, you can do loops, you can do functions. Uh And they love that. It was very fun. And then I had a more hands on activity where they could do some more collaboration. And before it was time for them to go back to their school, I asked them, can you please fill out this survey? And so I hand out the survey and to my surprise, every single girl out of the 4040 wrote down that because of the event they now wanted to pursue college education. And that is just a testament that you cannot be what you cannot see. And that's what I love what I do. So let me tell you a little bit about uh more about what we do. So what we do is we do three things, we do three efforts, we do coding workshops for that one. What we do is we bring kids, we either go to a school uh where the kids are or to uh some sort of organization where the students are or we bring to Microsoft Campus and we do first we have someone sharing their story, we have some sort of a coding workshop that could be Python um javascript Visual Basic uh html CS S uh and C# that's what we have right now.

So they do that, they start from Hello world all the way to having some sort of a solution that they can run. Like most of the time it's a game or a fun activity. And then we also show them the hardware portion. Uh We play with other fruits, Microbit and we recently uh got some EV three Legos. So we do those two parts and then we have lunch and I bring them a panel of people from the engineering side. Uh that would be like software engineers or program managers. But I also bring in uh role models from non engineering side. So that will be either people from the marketing, the legal, the finance, the business, the sales and the idea for that is that I want to make sure that even if some students are not necessarily into the stem path that they could, they could see themselves that it doesn't matter what path they go, there's likely a place in tech for them to also be part of tech.

And so that's, that's the goal in there. It has been amazing. The things that I can tell you is that when the kids get to campus for them is like going to Disney World, especially with the kids that we work. Uh Some of them, they, they might not even be in the city yet. Uh And they get there and they have like free sodas and a ping pong table and an arcade and that to them, it just makes them like dream like they could be there too. Like it's possible there's people that look like them. Like it, it's ok like I can dream. Um And that has been just amazing to see their reaction because they come in the morning, probably not wanting to come because they come in from three hour drive, four hour drive, two hour drive. Uh And they have to, they have to come to this uh trip and then when they leave, they do not want to leave and they're like, just super excited about coding. Uh Let me see. OK. The other effort uh uh the other uh effort that we do is virtual sessions. So we have had uh success in the terms of like coding workshops.

And we've been asked, hey, can you bring your message to a school in New York, to a school in Miami, to a school in L A, to a school in Bolivia, to a school in Peru, New Zealand. And so we've been doing this and the only way that we could scale is to do virtual sessions. So in those virtual sessions is a 30 minute call where one of us or the volunteers shared their story of how they got into STEM and the students get to ask questions. And the reason this has been successful based on the feedback that we've gathered. And also the professors and the teachers is because it's unlikely that the schools where they go to, they might have a role model that would look like them, that could be in a tech job. So those have been great. And the speaker series for those is when you go, I don't know if you remember when you were in high school or in middle school and there's this big auditorium uh in a tech talk style where we get to share our message about stem education and what it can do for you and your family at a larger audience.

So we've been doing this and because we're all in tech and we love numbers. I want to show you a little bit about the impact that we've had. So I, as I mentioned, we started in April 2018. And up to today, we've helped about 5358 diverse students. They are diverse in any shape because of their race, because of their income, because of their ethnicity or because of their gender. And we've survey them just to make sure that we can improve. And also that what we're doing is impactful. And after our events, 80% of them are more interested in stem education. And 91% of them believe that they learn how to code. And we've been able to do this on more than 10 countries in three languages. And if you are, and if you are like, convinced that sharing your story can help somebody else more than happy to take you for an offer and, and say, look, we have a youtube channel. You wanna share your story, inspire students, please do so and any language is ok. So because pictures tell more than what I'm talking about. I wanna share like these four pictures and the story behind them. So the first picture right there uh that this lady right here at the top, right uh top left corner is she was super excited at the event.

And she's like, can you please please take a picture of me because I learned how to code and guess what I'm doing tonight. And so I'm like, oh, tell me and she's like, I'm gonna teach my little sister how to code because now I know um so that holds a very special place in our hearts because it's not normal or you wouldn't think about a little girl that would say, hey, I, I learned how to code and I'm teaching my sister.

Um But that talks a little bit about what we've been doing in the uh top right corner. We have an event about 100. I think this is the first time that we had an event that had more than 100 students from multiple high schools, uh, that came to campus and we taught them how to code the picture at the lower left. That is the first time that I held an event that was all for girls. And that many, it was about 65 girls that came from Tacoma, which is a, uh, an ad Jetson City here to Seattle. And it was an amazing experience. And I, I was like, I have, we have to do this more. And the last picture that I have on the uh lower right corner, uh It's some people like, yeah, but like are they really paying attention? It seems like they're just laughing and listening to their own music. And what's funny about this one is that we teach a workshop uh where you can make your own song by writing Python. It's called ear sketch. And it has been a hit for kids that are very shy and then all of a sudden they start making their own beats and they just have a lot of fun while learning the same concepts about coding. But we cannot do this with our team.

So there's a team, a lot of volunteers, a lot of people that have passion to help others and to give back, this is a picture of the hackathon that we have. Last year, we had about 90 hackers. This is part of the hackers that were there and every single person had to add something to, to the Nuevo Foundation and they've been adding some coding, some exercises, some mentorships, some ideas and all of them has been like, very grateful because some of the students, uh so we had some interns and, and they, what they share is they are because of an uh uh work similar to the foundation.

It's why I'm, I'm in computer science or because they had a speaker that came to my high school or my middle school and talked to me about computer science. That's what I decided to go that route. And those are people that have been benefited from programs like this one that they wanna keep giving back. Am I doing on time? Nicole?

Probably need to bring it home if you can uh get, get us to close? That would be awesome.

Ok. Um So how can you find your passion? So, what I have in here is what is it something that you enjoy doing like that? You w when you're doing it, you're happy, like you can be like your true self. The other thing uh that maybe would be helpful to us would be what makes you happy and complete. Like what after you do that something, it could be helping others, it could be dancing, it could be playing sport at whatever that is. Uh What, what would that be? And the last is, is that something that you do often? And if you cannot do often because of any reason. Would that be something that you'd like to do often? And I think if you can answer three questions, it can really help you to get. What is it that you're passionate about? And hopefully you can follow that and pursue it? So I think that's what I had. I don't know if they're questions. Yeah,

we don't really have as much time, but I just wanna let you know, I did drop your linkedin uh link in there. This is Nicole Shuffler. Look at my chats for her linkedin if you wanna connect with her directly as well as I provided the foundation link. So just uh I think the biggest thing is to thank you for giving back a lot of comments around your impact and your inspiration and unfortunately, we are behind schedule. So we're gonna have to move along, but we really appreciate you um giving back to the community, doing your day work and then doing that. And that's just something we can all do to make the world a better place as women in tech. So it's very inspiring. Thank you. So let's give her a round of applause. Oh.