Reshma Saujani speaks at an event in New York City in 2016
IN February 2016 Reshma Saujani stood in front of a crowd of about one thousand people She told them the story of her most humiliating failure She had run for political office in New York and she had lost The experience had been awful for her She felt as though she had disappointed her friends family and supporters She had lost a lot of money and she had failed But she said this experience was one of the first times in her life that she had felt truly brave Saujani was speaking at TED2016 Dream in Vancouver British Columbia TED Technology Entertainment Design features a popular series of inspiring talks Past speakers include Nobel Prize winners former presidents and leaders of major companies They speak about new ideas and ways to move society forward In her talk which has been viewed on the internet more than three million times Saujani said that society teaches young girls to avoid risk Young girls are told to smile look pretty and get good grades But society expects boys to be rough and to run around on the
playground and jump off the monkey bars Saujani spoke of women and girls who told her they had pursued careers in fields where they knew they would succeed They wanted to avoid failure But boys according to Saujani tend to take risks They are taught to be brave Saujani says that because girls are discouraged from taking risks few women have science and technology careers company leadership roles and seats in Congress The lack of women in such roles led Saujani to believe that girls needed to write computer code Coding is a process of trial and error Every coder will make mistakes Saujani right works with two girls who are learning to code in a summer program in 2017
They will try and fail many times before they get the code right and create a program that works Writing computer code requires perseverance and acceptance of imperfection Coding Saujani says requires bravery and this bravery will help girls achieve their goals in other areas of life as well At the end of her talk Saujani told the audience I need each of you to tell every young woman you know to be comfortable with imperfection We will build a movement of young women who are brave and who will build a better world for themselves and for each and every one of us Saujani believes that when society teaches young girls to be brave girls will have the tools they need to change the world Child of Refugees In 1971 Idi Amin came to power in Uganda a country in East Africa The military had overtaken the government and Amin declared himself president It was clear that Amin would rule as a dictator someone who has complete power He immediately began working to get rid of those he believed were against his government and who threatened his power About eighty thousand South Asians were living in Uganda at the time In the 1890s the British government had brought people from India into Uganda as railway workers After building the Uganda Railway many
