I love stories that have unexpected beginnings. Alexandra Diracles and Melissa Halfon met at Startup Weekend EDU in New York City this past January. They left with a first place winning prototype and the start of Vidcode, an online interactive software that brings the power of hacking videos with code to teens. Girls can upload Instagram videos, learn to program video effects and share the final creations with their friends. Coding meets social.
Alexandra and Melissa are connecting the dots between girls, videos, friends, fun and coding. Or as 13-year-old Lily said, “I now know that I can actually use code for something that I’m interested in.” Finding an interest is always a good place to start.
Denise: What needs to be fixed in the world?
Melissa: My first job as a computer programmer began with a grueling hiring process. Amongst a large pool of applicants, I spent two months learning an arcane programming language and waited as the group got whittled down to a single remaining candidate. I was awarded the position and as a result, marched into the first day of work full of confidence. That is, until my new boss approached my desk. He stood over me and said, “I hope you can do the job. I’m still not sure you’re a hacker.” I paused, slightly perplexed as I thought I was given the job based on technical merit, and asked, “Why not?” He responded, “Because you don’t look like one.”
These are the kinds of perceptions that often go unspoken, but silently permeate the field of technology and girls’ opinions of it. These are the pervasive tones in the workplace and classrooms that break their confidence and deter them from pursuing certain paths completely. These are the opinions that need adjusting so the world can be reframed for the girls of tomorrow.
Alexandra Diracles (l) and Melissa Halfon (r), cofounders, Vidcode
Denise: What will it look like when it’s fixed?
Alexandra and Melissa: When there are more women in the technology workforce, human-centered design & engineering will expand. What technology can solve for communities, relationships and our future as a human race will strengthen with more diverse perspectives. Empathy, problem solving and community will become even more important as Artificial Intelligence proliferates. We want more women designing and engineering that future. It’s a future that can be empathetic, discerning and powerful beyond comprehension if we all put our heads together, men and women alike. It’s not subtractive, only additive.
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Denise: What are you doing to fix it?
Alexandra: Melissa and I met at Startup Weekend EDU in New York City this past January. I was there to research for my Master’s thesis at NYU ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) and Melissa’s boss had organized his team to participate. She was building algorithms for an equity trading desk at the time. Neither of us planned on leaving with a first place winning prototype. At the beginning of the weekend we both pitched ideas and ended up teaming up based on our mutual passion for getting girls excited about STEM. We were coming from completely different perspectives: I as an artist who found code in my late twenties, and Melissa as a long time math ninja who has loved STEM since birth. This dynamic is incredibly important to our process. Melissa brings the technical perspective and I bring the creative input. We meet in the middle as we speak the same language in code. This helps us develop a product which serves the teenage demographic in a way that is approachable, creative and highly technical at the same time. Three other talented people joined us that first day: Leandra Tejedor, Terry Van Duyn, and Ken Warner, and we’ve been working together ever since.
Melissa: Vidcode is a cutting edge education platform to learn computer programming through interactive video techniques. Essentially, we have leveraged the newest JavaScript and web technologies that allow you to manipulate video footage and deliver it to teens’ doorsteps. With these techniques a user can change a video pixel by pixel, pinpointing what colors to change, how fast to go, and even multiplying the pixels in each frame together using code.
After that initial prototype we spent the entire spring researching, coding, designing and user testing the platform with teenage girls. We built the existing site for teenage girls based on their requests. We asked them, “What’s missing for you in a programming environment?” They told us they want to pair it with a hobby, be creative and include their friends. With Vidcode girls can upload their videos, code their own effects and then share the final video with friends.
Alexandra: The ability to share the message of coding to their own peer group is incredibly important, and imperative to our mission because it reinforces what girls want: to pursue code with their friends. That’s why Melissa and I wanted to do this in the first place. Sharing the final video customized with code creates a critical community of peers to encourage girls to continue coding together. Programming is difficult and you need constant stimulation of other cool projects as well as a community of peers, to keep you going throughout the process. We want to promote girls to show off what they are creating to each other, and in doing so inspire each other to constantly break new ground.
Denise: There’s a stereotype of the young tech guy, but what about the young tech woman – and not just in Silicon Valley? Is the road for women unpaved/less paved?
Alexandra: Women in tech are shapeshifters who have the capability to be laser focused on code, analyze the higher-level concepts of a project and be in touch with the social impact of the product they are building. We see our fellow women in technology as tenacious, curious and committed to solving social and technical problems.
Melissa and I paint our own picture of what young tech women are. We spend every day together, either hacking away at our co-working space in SOHO at the NYU Poly incubator or at our apartments. We don’t have regular work hours and we don’t feel like we are ever really working. We eat take out together, joke around and get tons of work done. We love what we do and get excited to build things that can contribute to the younger generation and help inspire what they make with code.
Melissa: The only thing that makes things harder for us in the tech or startup industry today is that we are non-traditional candidates. It takes a little time for us to build relatability with a room full of guys. That being said, it happens, and we’ve received a great amount of support from men throughout the industry.
On a personal level we want to see more women in the startup incubators, in the software engineering labs and in finance because we believe in the value diverse perspectives brings to these industries.
Denise: The word code often creates a picture of a person sitting alone in the dark and programming all night. Do you think that image keeps girls out of tech?
Alexandra: I studied at New York University’s incredible ITP. I learned more from my fellow classmates than I can ever express. When I was learning JavaScript, I would get bored at times. I’d sit there hitting a wall. Then I realized that if I thought of the code like a story, with each variable being a character that could be positively or negatively affected by the function I was writing, I cared a lot more about the code. This is particular to me, but I know I’m not alone. I was yearning for a people-oriented way to learn code.
Social and code are two terms that you typically don’t hear together. Why? No good reason. One, it’s a fallacy, as code has been innately social since the invention of the world wide web as a place to share information. Two, developers swap tips all the time, even the anti-social ones. Three, we are at the dawn of a new age where discussing code and sharing ideas about how to code, is becoming a common way to speak to one another; or it will be soon. From the first experience on, we want our users communicating with each other and their communities about what they are creating with code.
Melissa: On the Vidcode platform we are introducing content that is normally taught in advanced graphics programming courses (video processing). We’ve intentionally avoided the traditional 101 material, not because it’s simple, but because it lacks engagement. Like any first impression, the first experience learning code can be make or break. We designed it with girls’ interests in mind to give girls an invitation to this try technology and keep coming back.
Denise: What advice do you have for young women who want to be tech entrepreneurs?
Alexandra: Learn to code! The power to create your own prototypes, and make them come to life is unexplainably wonderful. Just like sketching an idea communicated with an audience, prototyping a product you want to introduce to the world gives you the keys to make your dreams a reality. For Melissa and I it has been a dream come true to be able to build, ship and expand on a product ourselves.
Melissa: We also advise girls to take a couple business courses. It may seem boring now but it will pay off later. Every human being should understand finance. Even work in finance for a few years. You don't have to do it forever, but the experience you gain working with investors on the ground will give you the power to get funding for your startup. Finance and code are languages that move mountains. We want our girls occupying those positions of power!
Denise: You’re a startup, how do you survive financially, personally and professionally?
Alexandra: We are currently raising funds for the development of the next phase of Vidcode on Kickstarter. When we succeed in our goal, we will be developing advanced features for Vidcode and shipping a full curriculum for teachers to implement in the classroom.
Melissa and I have both been highly creative as we have bootstrapped our business. Airbnb has been a lifesaver for both of us. As we travel, and even sometimes when we are in NYC, we rent out our places. Melissa took extra precautions as a woman renting out her place and listed it under a male relative's name. It can be stressful at times to turn your living space into a hotel, but it compliments the transient lifestyle we employ as entrepreneurs. We can work anywhere, any time, happily.
The unknowns of starting a company can be stressful but the payoff is too good to not keep going. The biggest pay-off is seeing girls’ attitudes change about programming after using Vidcode. Another is working with a co-founder who inspires, informs and compliments my skills. Last but not least, is having the ability to run your own company based off your own values. With Vidcode, we began with five people and have remained with the same original team throughout. Our mutual passion and values for what we are creating is unshakable.
Melissa: The life of any early-stage entrepreneur is a daily challenge -- monetarily, emotionally. For me, thriving in that stage comes down to evaluating the risks and their potential rewards. With family and allies rooting me on, I feel more confident in making leaps and believing that the risk-reward payoff is in my favor. That support system is huge.
It’s full of unknowns and instability and I’m ok with that. There are other ways I could be bringing in a stream of steady income, but most would be at the sacrifice of doing work I love. I choose this path because the end result of our work is something the world would be worse without. I know we’re the ones to bring it.
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