At Yahoo, we encourage a culture of learning, both personally and professionally, internally and externally. Yahoo Research, in particular, often takes observations and shares them with the academic community. At the same time, we look to the academic community for revelations to share amongst Yahoos. It is in this open spirit we present a Big Thinkers talk with Dr. Marti Hearst, a luminary in the fields of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Search, covering fascinating new insights on learning in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
MOOCs have been widely touted as one of the most transformational and disruptive developments in the recent educational landscape. Whereas traditionally one had to physically attend a class, MOOCs have enabled students of all ages from around the world to have affordable access to high-quality courses and instructional materials that five years ago would not have been possible. This technology has thus opened up no shortage of research questions on how we adapt to learning in online settings with remote instructors and peers. Can people learn as effectively in these settings as they do in a classroom, even without face-to-face contact? How can high standards of education be maintained in this modality when scaling from 100 to 1,000 or even over 10,000 users for a single course? MOOCs have the potential to drastically change how we learn and how our children will learn.
Come back and join Yahoo Research and Dr. Marti Hearst on Wednesday, May 25 at 1p.m.PT for our LIVE webcast below. Before and during the talk, ask questions or comment on the Yahoo Research Facebook and Twitter (#BigThinkers) pages.
Dr. Hearst will discuss her recent research into understanding the best educational practices for MOOCs and how innovative techniques such as peer feedback can improve the engagement and retention of learners in distributed settings.
Meet Chris, Yahoo’s Director of Product Marketing on the Flurry team based in San Francisco. Chris leads product marketing for the Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite, which includes the industry-leading Flurry Analytics and Yahoo App Publishing. Prior to this role, he was responsible for mobile product strategy and sales enablement at Yahoo; where he deployed Gemini mobile native ads for Yahoo properties and developed the go-to-market strategy for Yahoo sales team. Before Yahoo, Chris managed the ad exchange and network relationships for Forbes.com, overseeing the monetization of Forbes inventory on third party platforms. Chris holds a B.S. in journalism from Boston University, where he was a four-year varsity athlete and member of the United States Rowing National Team.
How did you get interested in tech?
Right out of college I started working in book publishing (at that point, the opposite of tech!) in New York City. An opportunity to join the Forbes, Inc. came about a year later, and I got involved in helping them monetize their digital properties. From Forbes I joined Yahoo in 2011 and worked on the Right Media Platform helping large brands like Kellogg’s establish their programmatic buying businesses. At Right Media and Yahoo, I was able to work cross functionally with product, engineering and sales to learn all sides of the business and dig into our mobile growth initiatives. The ability to learn technical sides of the ad tech business challenged me to grow and become a subject matter expert.
What is it like working for Yahoo?
Working at Yahoo is a blast. There is a lot of opportunity to grow and learn your skillset, and work with some of the brightest minds in tech. The Flurry team is incredibly motivated and fun! We love to hang out at the Tempest Bar behind our SF office after work. Follow us on Twitter and Tumblr!
What has been a technical (or non-technical) project you are most proud?
In February of 2015 we launched the Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite at the first ever Yahoo Mobile Developer Conference in San Francisco. This was a huge win for Flurry and Yahoo, as we were able to provide app developers suite of products to help them grow and monetize their businesses. The developer conference was a huge success and we able to ship some great products!
What is your connection to Yahoo’s Pride Employee Resource Group?
The Yahoo Pride ERG, as well as all of our other ERG’s, are great resources for employees to find support from like minded individuals. It’s been nice to have a network with Yahoo and the support from members are well as leadership within the company. I marched with the Yahoo contingent during the SF Pride Parade in 2014 and met some of my closest friends there!
Why is diversity important to you?
It is incredibly important that our workplaces are diverse in order for us to build products and experiences that are accessible to everyone. Both Yahoo and Flurry build products that are global and we need perspective and representation from different voices to meet our user’s needs.
By Mike Shebanek, Senior Director of Accessibility
This week Yahoos everywhere celebrated the fifth annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) dedicated to raising awareness of the more than 1 billion people worldwide that have a disability. The idea is simple: get people talking, thinking and learning about what it means to enable equal access.
At Yahoo, we work every day to create online products and services that can be enjoyed by everyone, including those with disabilities. Whether a person is disabled or not, products that are conceived and designed with every individual in mind are simply better products. Great design demands nothing less.
At our headquarters in Sunnyvale, The Yahoo Accessibility Team hosted an all-day open house in its renown Accessibility Lab, a place where Yahoos can explore common disability issues, through a variety of activities including the use of “color blind” goggles, gloves that inhibit dexterity, noise-generating (and cancelling) headphones—even simple things like using only a physical keyboard to navigate and use apps on smart phone. Then visitors learn to successfully use assistive technology like screen readers, magnifiers, high-contrast settings, speech control, closed captioning, switch controls, and alternate input devices, with our products just like our users do. These experiences enable our team to better understand and develop solutions that not only make our products more accessible, but fun, efficient, and useful for everyone.
Accessibility Team member Darren Burton teaching fellow Yahoos how to use a screen reader in the Yahoo Accessibility Lab
Yahoos who weren’t able to visit the lab were able to make GAAD meaningful by taking part in simple activities at their desk and on their mobile phones individually with their teams. Some of the activities included finding and fixing software bugs specific to accessibility while others included taking time to learning how to use a new accessibility tool like a color contrast analyzer or the new Android Accessibility Scanner. There were even activities for non-technical Yahoos who were encouraged to take a few minutes and use their computer without a mouse or trackpad to better understand the issues facing those who are only able use a keyboard or alternate input device.
Topping the week on May 19th, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, its founders Jennison Asuncion and Joe Devon hosted a fantastic event at Mozilla in San Francisco inviting everyone in the Bay area to celebrate with great food, great company and a variety of presentations. It was my honor to be selected to kick off the celebration with a presentation on the future of digital accessibility and the important work of a great new initiative called Teach Access.org created to ensure the future of digital accessibility.
GAAD founders Jennison Asuncion and Joe Devon open the celebration
What an incredible week it’s been! If you’d like to learn more, I encourage you to check out the many GAAD activities listed on the GAAD.org web site and a recent article posted by the Daily Dot which took an in-depth look at what tech companies, including Yahoo, are doing to raise awareness and make their products more accessible. And, like we do at Yahoo, make every day Accessibility Awareness Day!
Meet Emmy, Manager for Yahoo for Good based in Sunnyvale where she manages the Yahoo Employee Foundation, social impact projects and employee engagement programs.
Emmy joined Yahoo in 2013 as Chief of Staff for the Global Learning and Development team, where she supported the Yahoo University team’s learning and leadership development portfolio, and lead development strategy for top talent initiatives. Prior to Yahoo, Emmy worked with organizations focusing on youth and experiential learning programs in the Bay Area such as Galileo Learning, Citizen Schools and Youth Community Services. After graduating college, Emmy was named a Davis for Peace Fellow for founding a startup microfinance organization in Namibia, Africa. The startup provided impoverished women facing domestic violence with artisan workshops and entrepreneurial skills to create small businesses, and build a life towards financial independence. She received her Bachelor’s of Art in Communication and Culture, International Development and Social Change from Clark University.
In her spare time, Emmy is part of the UC Berkeley Advisory Board for the Innovation & Leadership through Positive Psychology Executive Education Program exploring how positive workplace practices can help leaders improve engagement levels in companies. She also leads and facilitates mindfulness retreats across California connecting leaders with tools that reduce stress and maximize fulfilment. She’s a world traveler, avid skier and outdoor enthusiast.
How did you get interested in tech?
I grew up in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto) surrounded by entrepreneurs and innovators. When I traveled abroad, I told people I was from “the internet” as I used to walk my dog by the first Facebook building. I started my career working in nonprofits, where I lead programs that addressed poverty, the opportunity divide and economic inequality in the U.S. and Africa. During a project I was part of in Namibia, I was taken back by the power of technology and it’s ability to connect people across the world. I made the transition to the tech sector so I could help influence ways technology could address problems in the world and create long lasting solutions. Now that I’m working in Silicon Valley, I have the opportunity to support many of the global organizations I partnered with at a much larger scale.
What is it like working for Yahoo?
Yahoo is an incredible company. Yahoo attracts amazing people, who are smart, fun and want to make a big impact. There are tons of ways you can get involved in initiatives you’re passionate about. For example, I’m passionate about diversity in tech and was invited to lead the Yahoo Pride Employee Resource Group (ERG) driving initiatives for the LGBTQ employee base. I’m passionate about building strong teams and leaders, and had the opportunity to create development strategies and manage programs for emerging leaders and top engineers. I’m continuously surprised how Yahoo’s culture and environment allows me to bring my full self to work each day and lead from an authentic place.
What is your connection to Yahoo for Good?
I was fortunate to transition my career at Yahoo into my current role as Program Manager for Yahoo for Good and the the Yahoo Employee Foundation (YEF). I lead employee volunteering campaigns, manage Yahoo’s corporate giving sponsorships and design employee engagement initiatives such as a Mindfulness Program. As the Program Manager of the Yahoo Employee foundation, I support the employee Board of Directors, lead the giving strategy, create communications and drive multi-faceted grant cycles providing opportunities for employees to champion grants for causes they care about in their communities. Since 2000, YEF has granted over 1,000 grants – more than $20 million dollars – to organizations that Yahoo employees chose, making it one of the largest giving circles in the world! In 2016, YEF plans to grant $2.5 million to causes all over the world that Yahoo employees are passionate about!
Why is diversity important to you?
Diversity = authenticity and innovation. The world is a diverse place and companies should reflect how the world looks, not just be accessible to an elite few.
My passion for diversity drove me to create a program that addresses diversity issues with tangible solutions. In my current role managing the Yahoo Employee Foundation, I created a grant program that aligns diversity and social impact initiatives. This program allows Yahoos ERGs to partner with nonprofits aligned to their mission and apply for grant projects that address the opportunity divide and issues facing their diverse populations. We just launched the program and I’m happy to share that the Yahoo Employee Foundation will be funding over $100,000 in grants to organizations aligned to Veterans, LGBT, African American and Latino populations! The magic of this program is in the partnership, as employees create an impact by supporting non-profits in the community aligned to diverse population and volunteer to support the causes throughout the year. For example, our Veterans employee resource group applied for a grant in partnership with an organization called Fisher House which is part of the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. Fisher House received a $25,000 grant from the Yahoo Employee Foundation to support the temporary housing unit for Veterans and active duty service members and their families when a Veteran or servicemember is inpatient at the hospital. Yahoo employees will volunteer each quarter with activities such as holiday drives, meal prepping, cooking, tutoring and gardening to support veterans. The diversity grant program program is all about partnerships and is a platform for employee groups to drive change in their communities.
What is your advice to aspiring youth who are considering a career in STEM?
Get involved in projects and issues you’re passionate about. Trust your big dreams and follow them. Ask for a mentor and think about problems in your community that you want to solve. How can you use technology to design a solution to these problems? Having a career in Tech can open your eyes to many ways you can make a big impact on your communities and the world we live in.
Lastly, what is your favorite Yahoo memory?
A memory that will be in my mind forever was on June 27, 2015 when marriage equality was legalized in the U.S. and Yahoo threw a party to celebrate at our Headquarters in Sunnyvale. As the Chair of Yahoo Pride Employee Resource Group, I was able to lead a global campaign celebrating LGBT equality at Yahoo from highlighting equality issues on Yahoo products to employee activations on campuses. At Yahoo Headquarters, we hosted a transgender visibility panel, a LGBT nonprofit fair and threw a celebration and dance party to take in the historic moment with colleagues. Yahoo’s been named a Best Place to Work for LGBT employees for nine years in a row by the Human Rights Campaign. It’s incredible to be part of a company that cares about and prioritizes diversity and social issues.
Yahoo for Good leverages core Yahoo assets, our people and product, to enable the next generation of creative thinkers and doers. We do this by providing access to opportunities in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math), and by channeling your passion for good into social impact.
Meet Elizabeth, Yahoo’s Anti-Spam Architect for Yahoo Mail. She grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and has an honors interdisciplinary degree from Ohio State in Cognitive Science, but she’s not a Buckeye (sorry, football people). Elizabeth spent most of her adult life in California, aside from a few years living in French-speaking Switzerland, and she has bounced around the high-tech industry in a variety of roles and specialties including security, system administration, technical writing, engineering management and consulting. The smallest company she has worked for was three people; the biggest was about 15,000, and they’ve included for-profit entities, not-for-profit entities and the State of Ohio.
Elizabeth wrote one book twice, with two different co-authors; that’s the first and second editions of “Building Internet Firewalls”, published by O'Reilly. She is a founding board member of three separate system administrator groups (SAGE in the United States, BayLISA in the SF Bay Area, and SAGE-AU in Australia).
How did you get interested in tech?
I was not one of those techy kids. I was a bookworm kid and an arty kid. I was sure I was going to grow up to be a professor like my father. I was doubly sure once math and I parted ways in middle school (what I remember about middle school math is that I hated my teacher almost as much as I hated his green plaid golf pants). I did get to use the computers in high school (which was a big deal!) but I used them to study New Testament Greek.
But then I needed a job, and I got one working for what these days would be called a startup but back then was just a really small company building barcode systems, and it was so small that I was hired to file and make coffee, but I am really terrible at making coffee and really not terrible at a lot of other things they needed done, which amounted to pretty much everything but the actual code that went into the system, including the manuals, the testing, building cables (sometimes out of paperclips), the design of the software, and standing on Rockwell International’s truck axle manufacturing line talking to them about inventory management, barcode labeling, and the difficulties of maintaining printers in an environment with loose pigeons. And I was still in school, and computer science was a hacky way of fulfilling the math requirement…
And 20 years later I explained to my boss that my middle school math teacher told me I’d never be any good at math and my guidance counselor told me to avoid all things technological, and he laughed so hard he had to hold on to his cubicle wall to stand up.
So the short answer is “It’s inside work and it pays well.”
What is it like working for Yahoo?
I like to tell people “From here you can move the Internet. You can’t move it very far because it’s really big. But you can move it.” And that’s true; we touch hundreds of millions of people a day, all over the world, and we have the reach to make small but significant changes to the entire Internet. We’re hiring!
Photo credit: Elizabeth’s team after enjoying some cake in Sunnyvale.
What has been a technical (or non-technical) project you are most proud?
DMARC, which is one of those small but significant changes. You know how mail says “From: Your Friend <friend@friendsplace.example>”? I bet you always thought that meant it was from friendsplace.example. Nah, that’s never been an actual requirement. It was possible to lie about that. It still is in lots of situations, but DMARC lets domains say “if mail says it is from my domain, it needs to be able to prove it”. So if you see mail that has yahoo.com in the From: line on any major mail system, it’s really from yahoo.com. Which sounds so tiny – I had to put so many careful definitions in there – but slowly but surely we’re making mail do what people expect. I was lucky enough to be the person at Yahoo who worked on this while we finalized and implemented it, which is kind of like being the last runner in the relay race, in that I got to do a lot of work and sweep across the finish line, but at the same time lots of other people did their part first.
Why is diversity important to you?
I don’t fit well into little boxes, and the people I love don’t either – I want a world where we can all bloom instead of having our options limited. And that includes my daughter, who at 12 has given up her toddler dream of being a saber-tooth tiger airplane pilot, but is coming to the conclusion that we may be correct that technology is a great day job while you develop your skills as a graphic novelist.
Monoculture is both boring and dangerous. A single point of view won’t let you serve a broad population, or flexibly survive changes.
And I want to eat desi breakfast (scrambled eggs and mixed vegetable pickle on a poori is my favorite, but I’ll settle for putting tomato chutney on my eggs and tater tots, with a nice mug of proper unsweetened masala chai).
Yahoo is on Fatherly’s 2016 list of the best places for new dads. Read more here. We are proud to offer up to eight weeks paternity leave at Yahoo, this includes birth, adoption, foster child placement or surrogacy. Yahoooooo!
By Grace Chung, Senior Manager, Corporate Programs
Yahoo for Good was honored to host 60 fearless girls born to code at Technovation’s South Bay Regional Pitch Event on April 27. The event kicked off with an exciting keynote from Polyvore CEO Jess Lee, who shared her experiences being a female tech CEO. Twelve teams presented pitches for mobile apps addressing various social challenges, in front of an audience of over 100 people, including a panel of five Yahoo judges.
Technovation holds an annual challenge for girls globally to build a mobile app that will address a community problem. Since 2010, more than 5,000 girls from 28 countries have participated in this global challenge. Yahoo for Good was a proud sponsor of the 2015 Technovation World Pitch Event, with Preeti Somal, VP of Cloud Engineering, serving as one of six judges deciding the winner among ten finalist teams from around the world. Yahoo also hosted a screening of CodeGirl, a documentary profiling the Technovation competition, at our Sunnyvale campus last year.
Through our partnership with Technovation, Yahoo is proud to be a committed supporter of girls in tech and continue increasing access to STEAM education around the world. While there were only two semifinalist teams that moved onto the next round, the impact of empowering girls to code will have a lasting effect.
Yahoo for Good leverages core Yahoo assets, our people and product, to enable the next generation of creative thinkers and doers. We do this by providing access to opportunities in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math), and by channeling your passion for good into social impact.
By Phil Reding, Account Director - Politics & Advocacy
Located just
a few blocks from Yahoo’s Washington D.C. office, the DC Central Kitchen (DCCK)
can seem worlds away. Also located only a few blocks from the Capitol, it is a
stark contrast of the powerful and the powerless within such a short distance.
DCCK is
housed in the basement of DC’s largest homeless shelter, where you’ll find
dozens of disadvantaged, homeless Washingtonians. DCCK specifically is not a
shelter, but a kitchen – an enormous industrial kitchen with multiple ovens,
vats used for preparing massive quantities of food, its own bakery and so much
more. It’s a kitchen that feeds the downtrodden and disadvantaged of D.C.
Every day
DCCK prepares 5,000 meals for distribution to nearly 100 social services
agencies including shelters and halfway houses, using foods donated by farms,
grocery stores and warehouse clubs. Its mission is not just to fill the
stomachs of the needy with fresh, healthy meals but also to help them fill
their wallets by providing culinary arts training that will lead to gainful
employment. The culinary arts training program lasts 14 weeks. Within three
months after graduating, 93% of graduates are employed. Some of those are
employed by DCCK, which provides healthcare benefits, a 401K plan and a living
wage of more than $14 per hour.
I was first
introduced to the organization when I joined an organized office volunteer
event, during which we worked the morning prep shift in the kitchen sorting
tomatoes. The Yahoo DC office has volunteered
for kitchen prep multiple times, beginning in 2014 and most recently for Spring
Service this month.
Because the
Yahoo DC office values DCCK’s mission, we have “adopted” DCCK as the charity
that we support on an ongoing basis, both by donating our volunteer hours and
by providing financial support via the Yahoo Employee Foundation (YEF). Last
year I championed a YEF impact grant and DCCK was awarded $20,000, which will
be used in support of their mission. We plan to champion another grant this
year.
Fellow
Yahoo Katie Shay has joined the “Kitchen Cabinet,” a small group of young professionals who serve as
ambassadors for DCCK to help attract younger supporters.
I was recently
invited to participate as a judge in the culinary arts training program’s
midterm cook-off competition. This experience broadened my understanding of the
good works of this organization. While I had thought of DCCK as a provider of
food and training to the needy, I learned that for those enrolled in the
culinary arts program, it is a life-changing experience that
the participants. At the cook-off, the competitors were given the opportunity
to speak about their personal experiences and what the culinary arts program
meant to them. Most, if not all, had spent time in institutions and had had
difficulty acclimating to society. They were often emotional when they
spoke about not only the transformational benefit of learning to cook and
preparing for a job in the hospitality industry, but also about how they were
taught social skills and teamwork, how to create a resume as they prepared for
graduation, and maybe most importantly, the importance of celebrating their
personal accomplishments. And when the six teams took turns presenting their
respective chili dishes, they beamed with pride.
We look forward to continuing to support the DCCK!
Congratulations to Yahoo’s very own Charity Elder and Mandi Woodruff, who have been named part of Folio’s Top Women in Media! The list aims to recognize and honor women who stand out, those who have moved their teams, brands and companies forward, made strides in their respective markets, and created lasting impressions on their colleagues.
Charity Elder, an executive producer at Yahoo News, was named to the Corporate Visionaries list, which honors those who have steered their companies into new markets, new opportunities, new audiences, and strong, measurable growth. Charity and her team are working to redefine news for the digital era. Elder oversees the operational management of the news video team, as well as developing strategy and execution across divisions with the sales, product, homepage and marketing teams in order to deliver in full on sponsorship of Yahoo News video programs like ‘Cities Rising: Rebuilding America’ and ‘Now I Get It,’ a weekly explainer series, both of which feature Katie Couric, Yahoo Global News Anchor.
Mandi Woodruff, a reporter for Yahoo Finance, was named a Rising Star, for those women on the rise and making their mark, even at the early stages of their career. Mandi has established herself as a leading millennial voice at Yahoo Finance, where she covers all areas of personal finance, including everything from big investigative features to service oriented pieces that offer insight into a wide range of topics; whether it’s paying off debt, learning how to negotiate your salary, deciphering the healthcare system, planning a wedding, or weighing the pros and cons of renting vs. buying.
Congratulations to both on this honor, we look forward to seeing what you do next!
At Yahoo, we’re always aware of the risks of the Internet, and we unequivocally support those who work tirelessly to eliminate those risks. With that in mind, we are pleased to announce a Yahoo donation of much-needed computer hardware to the International Justice Mission (IJM)—a strong partner in Internet safety.
The IJM, through their partnership with the Women and Children Protection Center (WCPC) of the Philippines National Police, is saving the lives of women, children and other victims of human trafficking, slavery and exploitation. Working around the world and around the clock, the IJM provides critical assistance to the WCPC and other local law enforcement, including capacity-building and training.
Yet the IJM’s efforts are hindered by a severe lack of computing power. WCPC investigators routinely lack the necessary computers to handle the breadth and scope of cases that occur online.
IJM’s Melanie Martinson, who directs cyber investigations and data fusion, said: “Philippines law enforcement is committed to combating the online sexual exploitation of children. The systems provided by Yahoo will support officers as they conduct online investigations and collect and analyze digital evidence. The systems will provide great capacity for prioritizing cases so that the police can identify and rescue the children in most need. IJM thanks Yahoo for its generosity.”
Yahoo’s contribution of three servers and 10 laptops to the IJM is a considerable upgrade for this important effort. Through this donation, we’re proud to help the IJM and the WCPC resolve more cases in favor of vulnerable women and children, while making the Internet a safer place for all.
