The ‘Softie in Question: Lynn Langit

Job title: Senior Developer Evangelist – US/West.

 As an evangelist, Lynn Langit’s job is to share her passion for technology with others. But it is not just a job for Lynn. At Microsoft, Lynn has molded her passion and lifestyle into a thriving career.

From her early days as a budding linguistics student in a North Dakota farming community to running programs that introduce young women to technology from Southern California to South Africa, Lynn cuts her own trail and brings 100% of her electric presence to everything she does.

Microspotting sat down with Lynn (actually, we sat down while she logged a few miles at her treadmill-desk) to discuss women in technology and her idea of intrapreneuring.

{in-tra-pre-neur (In¹tre-pre-nur) n. A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea <they are passionate about!> into a finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation [intra(corporate) + (ENTRE)PRENEUR.] -intrapre-neuri-al adj. -intra-pre-neuri-al-ism n. -in'trapre-neuri-al-ly adv.}

Lynn, tell us about your work with young women in technology.
I work on two programs. The first is “Teaching Kids Programming” (TKP), which I co-founded. There I design and teach courseware to introduce middle-school aged girls and boys to programming. I work on TKP with contributors from Microsoft as well from the open-source programming community.

Second, I teach at and contribute courseware to Microsoft DigiGirlz, which is a series of events that showcase tech careers for high school girls. I have taught my TKP courseware in 15 US states and in places such as Denmark and South Africa.

What‘s the greater goal of these programs?
There are still very few women in programming. With TKP and DigiGirlz, we’re trying to provide a pipeline of technical women from which Microsoft and other tech companies can hire. Pipelines for female programming talent simply don’t yet exist, particularly in the US.
 

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