Women's History Month, An Interview with InScribe’s Female Co-Founders
InScribe’s female founders share their perspectives on Women’s History Month, their experiences as women in tech, and the people and things that inspire them.
What does Women’s History Month mean to you?
Katy Kappler: One of the things that I love about Women's History Month is the ability to look back and recognize the innovations and ideas that came from women in our history. We have a tendency to forget that a lot of the opportunities we have today have been laid by the women that came up before us. Women that worked in far more difficult times and whose contributions were often overlooked or not documented very well because it was such a male-dominated narrative. The people that my kids and I have been talking about are Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first female physician in the United States. And Katherine Johnson, who now a lot of people know because of the movie Hidden Figures, but whose work at NASA, ostensibly put a man on the moon. Recognizing their work and realizing that they accomplished all of this at a time when it was so hard for women to get a seat at the table did not prevent them from pursuing their passions and making these transformational changes in people's lives. It is very inspiring.
Ana Hernandez: For me, it's more about women today in a lot of respects. It's fantastic that the women before us were trailblazers, but the fact is we still need trailblazing women. There are still many areas where women are not at the level that men are. And I think it not only shines a light on the history of women but also all the work that we're still doing and still continue to need to do.
What does the phrase “empowered women, empower women” mean to you and how do you live this in your daily life?
Ana Hernandez: It's really about being a good role model and looking for strong female role models. I think the more you see yourself in the world doing things that women haven't always done, or in spaces that are largely occupied by men, it lets other women know that those possibilities are out there. The more that women are out there aggressively pursuing their dreams and achieving them, the more other women and girls will say that is an option for them too.
Katy Kappler: The reality of this statement is that strong women are the women who not only trailblaze themselves and are super successful in their careers, but that also are taking the time to help their peers and the women coming behind them to find their success as well.
What qualities make a great female leader?
Katy Kappler: As a leader, you have to have confidence and clarity of vision, especially in the workplace. You also need to balance that with empathy and the ability to be humble. Which to me means the ability to be open to new ideas. In my career, I’ve certainly worked for a lot of people. I've also had the opportunity to manage and have a number of people work for me. You can learn just as much from the people who you're nurturing and mentoring as the people that you're working for. Being open to that and unafraid of acknowledging that you don't know everything and you don't have all the answers, you'll find that people around you do and you'll build trust and partnership with the people that you work with. That's really critical to being successful.
Ana Hernandez: I think what gets missed a lot when people think about leadership is it's not all about the person and their skills. Such a big part of it is not only being able to cultivate other people and their skills as Katy said, but also recognize them. I think a lot of times, there's not enough emphasis put on the leader being able to say “Hey, this person did an amazing job! This wasn't me. I didn't do this myself.”
What female public figure, past or present, inspires you and why?
Katy Kappler: I'm wearing this shirt today in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom I find to be really inspiring. She did all these amazing things for gender equality and women's rights and the way that she did it by not emphasizing the need for women's rights but saying that gender equality is necessary because it benefits everybody and painting this picture of gender equality as something that all people should be fighting for. And all people will benefit from it. It was a brilliant strategy and such an important message that I think we want to make sure it carries forward in all the work that we're doing. This is like a rising tide raises all boats, kind of a thing.
Ana Hernandez: I played soccer growing up as did most people who grew up in the Denver Metro area. I'm really inspired by Megan Rapinoe. What I really like is that she's bringing awareness to more than just the gender pay gap. She is highlighting the fact that the women's US soccer team is exponentially more successful than the men's team and should be paid as such. While it is great to have equal pay with men, that's still not the point. The point is they're making more revenue than the men's team for the soccer association. They should be paid more. And the idea that you would pay the women more than you would pay the men is impossible to absorb. It's not enough to just say we're equal. It has to be equitable.
Growing up, was there someone in your life that inspired you to become who you are today? Who was it and why?
Ana Hernandez: I think everyone says their mom, but my mom. I was raised by a single mom and education was hugely important for her. It was never a question of if I would go on and continue my education, it was “what are you going to do with it?” My mom grew up in segregated schools and was one of very few Mexican American women going to college in the fifties. She kind of knew it wasn't going to be easy for us. Being a social worker and having four kids, many of whom were in college at the same time, the cheapest route for us, as it turns out was attending private school. In our case, the institution would cover most of the costs.
It's interesting to think about each of our paths. I think they're all very different and it's interesting where we all end up and just how our role models and in our cases, our mothers are inspiring us to get there as very different lenses, but know the importance of knowing or feeling like you can do it is a key piece of whether or not you ultimately do it.
Katy Kappler: My mom. I had a very similar experience to Ana in the sense that education was never a question for me. I've always had amazing educational opportunities. And it wasn't a question of if, but how and where. What's interesting about my growing up is the word inspiring is almost an unfair word because you know, my mother was and continues to be a super successful scientist. She worked with my father. So I grew up surrounded by a woman who was extremely smart, extremely successful in her field, very driven, and immersed in a world of collaboration with men well-respected by her lab. I didn't know any other way, it never occurred to me that I couldn't just be whatever I wanted to be like if I wanted to, and I had the skill to do it, I would just go do it. That was just the narrative that I grew up with. And it wasn't until I was much older that I realized that was not necessarily the most common experience for young women growing up. And so the inspiration probably came after the fact. It has opened my eyes to the fact that there is a responsibility I now have as a mother to paint the same picture for my children.
Why did you choose to become a founder in EdTech?
Katy Kappler: Well there are many facets to that question. I've worked in tech my entire career and I've always worked in areas that were connected to non-traditional students. I love learning and recognize how important education has been to opening opportunities for me, both in the knowledge that you build and in the relationships that you develop when you're at school. For non-traditional students, connecting not only to the academic part of learning but also to those networks of individuals is difficult. This inspired me to create systems that could overcome that for them or help pave the way for success.
Ana Hernandez: For me, part of founding a company was that we'd worked at really big and small companies and we were getting to the point that things felt like they had stalled or we can't do some of the things that we wanted to do. Then looking around at a lot of the people starting companies, we were like “Hey, wait a minute. If they're doing it, we can do it. They're not better, smarter, or more knowledgeable and we have been in the industry longer. What's stopping us?” We had a product vision that made sense and addressed a major problem in education - community and belonging in online learning. Aligned that with the 20 years of experience we had as a founding team and we were confident this wasn't out of reach.
What is something you wish you would have known early in your career?
Katy Kappler: You do not have to do everything by yourself. It’s okay to ask for help. That is a lesson I had to learn, not just in my work life, but just in my life in general. I think one of the downsides of growing up with a super-empowered, strong woman like my mother was that she really did everything herself. And I felt like that was what success was, being able to juggle every ball and never drop anything. It took my female friends who allowed me to be more vulnerable and to have the sort of strength to say, “I need help with my kids today,” or “I can't get this piece of work done” and just be okay with that.
Ana Hernandez: I really wish I would've learned that lesson a long time ago. To piggyback on that, I think a lot of women feel like everything has to be perfect. You can't just be okay, you have to be better than everybody, or it's not good enough. Getting to the point where you can be okay with just being good and to Katy’s point vulnerable and asking for help.
Also, there was this long period of time where the narrative was “women can have it all,” in reality, nobody can have it all. So you have to figure it out and set boundaries. In other words, today I'm going to be a really good mom or today I'm going to be a really good executive and maybe tonight I'm going to be a less awesome mom. Simply recognizing I have a support system that can help me pick it up without having to feel like I have to be amazing at all of those things all the time.
Why is it important that more women are represented in EdTech leadership roles?
Katy Kappler: The majority of students in education are women. The majority of educators are women. Women play the predominant role in supporting their kids at home who are learning and are usually the primary liaison to their kids' schools. Women are at the forefront of understanding many of the challenges, issues, and opportunities that exist in this space. I love the idea of women being able to bring their experience in all of these spaces and education into the EdTech world to solve real problems for real people. It’s truly the recipe for success.
Ana Hernandez: It is important for more women to be represented in not just EdTech but, organizations in general, not just, to show other women that there is a path for you, but to show men. I frequently discuss this with my son. This is what women do. We lead and we are executives. “This is normal. There's nothing to see here.” I think it is important to normalize this for everyone across the board, not just the women who also want to do it, but also for the men who need to empower them and get out of their way a bit.
Almost 56% of today’s higher education learners are women. The majority of this population is also what we refer to as non-traditional learners, meaning they are juggling family, a full-time job, and school, what impact do you believe InScribe communities will have on the future of education for women?
Katy Kappler: I hope that InScribe provides women with a place that allows them to feel more connected to the institution, to overcome some of their own challenges, and defeat the internal challenges of thinking “Can I actually accomplish this with everything else I have going on?” When you couple the practical side with the mental-emotional support of being a part of a larger community, students are receiving the learning and emotional support that is required for success when they need it the most, on their schedule.
When the only time you have to study is from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM at night, and you're trying to learn something and you don't understand it, what do you do? If you know that you can turn to this space where your classmates are going to be, your teachers are going to be, and you can ask questions, you are set up to get through the material more efficiently and effectively. This is going to allow you to smooth out some of the bumps in the road that may be small at the time. But when you have a million things going on, they can feel insurmountable. And our goal is to take all the micro-challenges that somebody might face when they're learning and create a smoother path so that they can focus on the things that really matter, like mastering the material and figuring out how they want to apply their education to their career.
Ana Hernandez: I was not a super confident student and school was not my thing. I was not there for the academics, I was there for the people. There were times I felt like I was the only one who was not doing great or was confused and stuck. So having a space where you can go and see other people are having the same challenges gives students the confidence to keep going. Without this confidence, the other option is that many students are going to shift into the mindset that they can’t do it. “I don't get it. I can't do this. It's too hard. I'm out.” There are so many people out there leaving school without a degree and with tons of debt, because those 10 o'clock nights are where they're like, “I don't get it. I'm not cut out for this.”
What piece of advice would you give to women in tech?
Katy Kappler: Be aware of imposter syndrome because it is real and try to be as honest as you can with yourself and others around you. There is this sort of perception, in the startup world in particular, that it is not okay to show any vulnerability, to be upset, or to admit you don't know something is somehow going to cause you to lose all credibility with your team and the people around you. When that is the perception, you have a bunch of people who are faking it all the time. Number one, it creates a lack of trust among people because now you never really know what's happening, but also it feeds this idea of imposter syndrome. Everyone else seems to have it so easy. Why am I struggling? I must not be able to do that.
The reality is every single one of us has likely been through the challenges you've been through and has felt despondent at times. We're just not willing to admit it. When I meet a community of founders or when I'm working with my team, I encourage everyone to be honest if they don't know something. It allows us to create honest relationships and bonds and build better trust.
What is something you’d like the next generation of children to know?
Ana Hernandez: Kindness really does matter. We talk with our son about this a lot. At the end of the day, are you doing things that make other people's lives better? Even if it's something as small as having humility, grace, and compassion for your fellow human beings. Because I think that as with anything, we don't get through this unless we get through this together. Especially now as we're so isolated, the temptation is to do what I need to do and move on. However, our ultimate goal as humans should be to all rise together. So ask yourself, “Are you being a good person? Are you being kind and helping others around you?”
Katy Kappler: Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. I am always telling my daughter “It's only embarrassing if you're embarrassed.” Be who you want to be, try the things that you want to try, and know that 99% of the time nobody's going to judge you for that. More often than not they're going to appreciate that you put yourself out there, you try really hard, and are not to be afraid to fail. This is a really hard lesson to teach and a hard lesson to learn. I want my children to feel like they can experiment and try a million different things until they figure out what's gonna work for them and allow them to be productive and awesome members of society.
Connect with Katy Kappler and Ana Hernandez on LinkedIn
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