The New York Times (11/20) “Bits” blog reported on a video that has been viewed more than six million times since it was posted earlier this week on YouTube. The video is an ad for GoldieBlox, a start-up “that sells games and books to encourage girls to become engineers.” In the ad, three young girls “grab a tool kit, goggles and hard hats and set to work building a machine that sends pink teacups and baby dolls flying through the house.”
The Slate (11/19) “The XX Factor” blog reported Debbie Sterling, the founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, studied engineering at Stanford University, “where she was dismayed by the lack of women in her program.”
The Los Angeles Times (11/21) “Opinion LA” blog guest blogger Susan Rohwer wrote Sterling “spent a year researching how she could create a building toy for girls beyond making it pink.”
The New York Daily News (11/21, Murray) reported Sterling said, “Girls have very strong verbal skills and like characters and stories.” Sterling also said, “So GoldieBlox combines storytelling and building.”
The Los Angeles Times (11/21, Lynch) “Share It Now” blog reports that the GoldieBlox website says, “By designing a construction toy from the female perspective, we aim to disrupt the pink aisle and inspire the future generation of female engineers.” The GoldieBlox website also says, “We believe there are a million girls out there who are engineers. They just might not know it yet.”
On its website, CNN (11/21, Letrent) added that Sterling “says her ultimate goal is to bridge the gap of gender disparity in engineering; according to the Association for Women in Science, women account for” less than thirty percent of the STEM work force.
The Washington Post (11/21, Mcgregor) “On Leadership” blog, the Christian Science Monitor (11/20, Norton) and other media sources also cover the story.