Joyce Varghese, Author at JusticeHub Innovation Lab

Coding in pink: leading more females into the technology industry

January 26, 2016 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Tech

In 2013, only 18% of U.S. college graduates with a computer science degree were women. It seems like if you give the opportunity for a woman to code, the technology industry expects her to ask “where are the pink accessories?”

More girls should be granted access to tech spaces. The root of this problem does not lie in universities or even Silicon Valley and their notorious nonexistent gender diversity. It stems even further, from a very young age. Girls and boys are taught that math and science are for the boys. Whenever a computer crashes, you call a technology specialist and chances are, he is a male. So how can this field invite girls in? A potential answer is “pinkifying” coding. They use this tactic because girls may find coding uninteresting and using the color pink can help encourage and invite them to try something new. The color is meant to emphasize “you’re a girl who codes” and “you’re a coder.”

Emily Reid, curriculum director of Girls Who Code, tells Mashable the tendency to pinkify coding comes from a desire to “meet girls where we think they are.” While she says the intention is good, the problem comes with assuming girls won’t be inherently interested in computer science — that things like “pink and princesses” are needed to lure them in.

Coding is a space that is historically not inviting to girls, especially African American girls. Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, also uses the color pink to appeal to girls.

All in all, it’s a controversial solution. If girls were encouraged from childhood, this would not be so “offensive.” But it’s definitely a baby step towards evening out a male-centered profession.

Article via Mashable, January 24, 2016

Photo: Crossroads Elementary School via DoDEA [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

The law school brain drain and bar pass rates

January 20, 2016 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment In the Law, Legal News

For the past few years, alarmingly low bar pass rates have made headlines. In July 2014, Erica Moeser, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners declared that the current bar exam test takers are “less able” than their predecessors. Law schools deans argued that this was a harsh categorization of their graduates. However, when the July 2015 bar exam results came in, Moeser’s statement was proven correct. Since the law school crisis began, applicants with lower qualifications who were predicted to encounter difficulty passing the bar exam were admitted in packs.

The great law school brain drain is evident but let’s take a closer look on what caused this great phenomenon. Jerry Organ, professor of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis has been tracking LSAT profiles of law school students for years. His analysis shows that LSAT scores correlate with scores on the bar exam. Below is a graph that displays categories of LSAT scores and the percentage of those with that score matriculated into Law school.

While the percentage for the students that scored between a 150-159 remained relatively stable, the 160+ category slowly declined and the students that scored below a 150 continue to increase every year. This is what happens when law schools need money and accept virtually anyone. Organ noted that “the top is eroding and the bottom is growing” and predicts the brain drain will have lasting effects: “Given that the LSAT profiles of matriculants and of law schools for fall 2013, fall 2014 and fall 2015 are less robust than those for fall 2011 and fall 2012 (the classes that graduated in 2014 and 2015, respectively), one can anticipate that the declines in median MBE scaled scores and corresponding bar passage rates in 2014 and 2015 will continue in July 2016, 2017 and 2018 absent increases in attrition, significant improvement in academic support programs at law schools, or improved bar preparation efforts on the part of graduates.”

Article via Above the Law, January 20, 2016

Photo: Studying via Francois de Halleux [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Apple App Store made about 1.1 billion over the holidays

January 6, 2016 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment News, Tech

In between Dec 20 and Jan 3, Apple said that customers purchased about $1.1 billion worth of app and in-app purchases which is a new record. Last year, Apple made about half a billion dollars in revenue. In 2015, customer spent a total of $20 billion on app purchases like Minecraft, Trivia Crack, as well as social networks such as Facebook Messenger and Snapchat. All in all, gaming and subscription apps did the best, like Clash of Clans and Hulu.

Not only has it been creating revenue, Apple has definitely seen growth in jobs. According to the new Progressive Policy Institute Report by Michael Mandel, Apple said it created 1.9 million jobs in the U.S., including 1.4 million through the App Store for developers, entrepreneurs, and some non-IT staff.

The App Store has consistently been the selling point for Apple products. This is a ray of hope because iPhone sales- the largest source of company profits- are expected to drop. Analysts do see revenue decreasing for 2016. Steve Koenig, a Consumer Technology Association market researcher, said that a number of factors, including a strong dollar and weak economies in parts of the world that had been driving new tech spending, indicate that 2016 will be a slower year for global tech spending overall.

The App Store will still continue to provide Apple with a distinguishable selling point because it helps keep customers coming back and gets them to buy more Apple products. Even more, Apple just launched a version of the App store for the Apple TV, expanding its presence to the family room.

Article via Washington Post, January 6, 2016

Photo: Apple. Tree. via Stuart Maxwell [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

How WordPress is affecting law firm websites

December 21, 2015 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Lawyer Tools, Resources

WordPress is identified as the best software in terms of digital publishing and managing content. As of November, the popular management system has reached a notable milestone: it powers about 25% of the internet. Statistically, 1 in 4 websites run on WordPress.

This is due to the ease-of-use. It’s great for people that have blogs, small businesses, personal portfolio sites, and basic retailers. Pool all of that together and it entails a great portion of the Internet.

A recent post by Lauren Nguyen of Pantheon, a website management platform, highlights the broadening applicability of WordPress, drawing on a survey of thousands of agencies in their partner network. “We see a trend of enterprise customers across all industries turning to WordPress. Historically, big companies have relied on proprietary enterprise CMS solutions. However, many are getting wise to the fact that open source CMS can give marketing teams the flexibility and agility they need to iterate and improve faster.”

WordPress is known to be simple to use and navigate through but people still list some issues. It isn’t ideal for complex websites, which characterizes law firm websites. However, earlier this year, WordPress announced that what it calls its “JSON REST API” will be part of its core. This allows the WordPress CMS to interact with basically everything — other sites, other software, other interfaces. Opening up with new possibilities will give WordPress the ability to connect with the more complex website and gain even more popularity.

For law firms, this means that:

1. They would be able to better integrate their publishing efforts.

Large law firms agree that publishing independent digital publications is ideal. They run on building reputations and audiences around that specific niche. Using WordPress API, publishers can pull their blogs onto the main website, and run the blog on a separate website. Using WordPress as an underlying CMS will remain a viable choice.

2. Website development companies can lay a custom background over the top of WordPress.

In the future, as WordPress advances from being a simple CMS and into a full-featured platform, the traditional interface becomes optional. If a company wants to build a custom interface geared towards elaborate law firm websites over the top of WordPress, they can do so.

Article via Above the Law, December 16, 2015

Photo: W for WordPress via Kristina Alexanderson [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Cybersecurity is a more serious issue when children start getting hacked

December 16, 2015 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Cybercrime

On Black Friday, we learned that someone hacked into the servers of VTech, a Chinese toy-maker. He or she obtained the personal information of nearly 5 million parents and more than 200,000 children. This included home addresses, names, birth dates, e-mail addresses, and passwords. Even more, it had photographs and chat logs between the parents and kids.

Furthermore, Bluebox security discovered vulnerabilities in Mattel’s Hello Barbie, the Internet-connected version of the doll. This raises questions. How many of these toy-making companies have secure databases? How many children will be affected from lax security?

The Internet of Things- devices that are connected to each other and the internet- has no real regulations. This is just toys; it includes appliances, cars, and unconnected digital and semi-analog devices. Companies don’t feel obliged to invest time, money, and effort into keeping securing their devices. There aren’t any international guidelines. On top of that, these companies are not required to tell consumers what information they are gathering and how they will protect it. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles had known about their security vulnerabilities with their touchscreen and Uconnect systems yet they didn’t bother fixing the issue until Wired Magazine and The Post published articles showing how vehicles can be hijacked while the driver was at the wheel. In other words, hacking can be a life-threatening issue.

Children are especially vulnerable to cyber attacks. It is also an emotionally charged attack because parents feel responsible for their kids. Just last year, Fox 19 reported a man hacked into a baby monitor in a home in Cincinnati, Ohio and started screaming “Wake up baby!” at a 10 month old child. The parents were horrified.

VTech did quickly admit that their security was not up to par. However, they had no real incentive to worry about security. VTech earns about 2 billion dollars in revenue and their Internet-connected toys are among the fastest area of its growth. According to Vivek Wadhwa, fellow at Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University, a potential solution to prevent breaches from happening is to raise penalties for lax security. Him and his colleagues also researched how they can mandate businesses to create systems that allow the consumer to control their own data. One proposal was that they create a system that allows people to manage their data by connecting their devices to a “personal dashboard”. Similar projects have been implemented such as OpenSensors and Wolfram Connected Devices Project.

Wadhwa concludes that “it is important to set standards now and ensure a safe cyber world for our children and ourselves.”

UPDATE: Police arrested a 21-year-old man on Tuesday as part of the investigation on the hack against Hong Kong-based toy-maker VTech. VTech previously said it is “cooperating with law enforcement worldwide” and that Mandiant is reviewing how the company handles customer information so it can “further strengthen” the security of that data. (Read the full article here)

Article via Washington Post, December 11, 2015

Photo: Vtech Video Painter circuit bent by ASMO via asmo23 [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Making a change in diversity in the legal profession

December 11, 2015 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Opinion

When it comes to diversity in the law, the status quo is the reigning champion. At the start of the millennium, 88.1% of lawyers were Caucasian. 10 years later, 88.8% were white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in the year 2000 and 2010, respectively. In other words, minorities in this profession have increased by less than 1% percent.

Bryan Stevenson’s TED talk discussion about America’s social justice system gained about 2 million views and a standing ovation. He hit 4 key points that are required for social change:

We need to get proximate to injustice. “The only solutions that work are the ones that are developed when one has an up-close view of a problem.”
Change the point of view. “What is really going on when, say, a 14-year-old black boy lashes out and throws a book at a teacher? Is the solution to incarcerate that child or to ask what happens to a child who has lived for 14 years surrounded by violence?”
Continue to be hopeful. “We give up on issues that we believe are hopeless, wrongs that we tell ourselves simply cannot be righted. ‘Injustice prevails when hopelessness persists.’”
Get out of your comfort zone. “Whether it is the people who led or joined the civil rights movement (or any other movement that created large-scale change), each and every person made a decision at a critical juncture that they were willing to be uncomfortable and put themselves on the line.”

With diversity being the issue to address in the coming years, people should know that it is not self-executing. The solution is to create advocates and mentors to motivate people from all backgrounds to enter the legal profession. Recruiters should diversify their campus searches and seek intelligent people regardless of economic background. No law school hopeful should be turned away because of financial issues.

Without change, the statistics may stay the same. The next three graduating classes will contribute only about 1% more diversity to the profession. However, the generation of Millennials can breathe life into this homogeneity.

Article via Above the Law, December 11, 2015

Photo: Ceremonial Courtroom, Alfonse D’Amato Courthouse, Central Islip via Douglas Palmer [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]