Ruminating Young Girls’ Futures By: Sanjana Pandit
“At first, I was really angry that that happened because it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Going to the hospital was really painful, because like every little bump or every little turn I could just feel my shoulder. And actually, when I was waiting to get taken care of by the doctor, I was definitely like, …‘I wonder if this is what people when they’re giving birth feel like.’” This incident occurred last year when a large man rammed into Bettina and dislocated her shoulder during an ultimate frisbee match. Being able to play such an intense sport at the height of 5’2 with grown men reveals Bettina’s competitive and tough nature. After this episode, Bettina was wavering about whether she wanted to continue pursuing this hobby of hers. She admits that she had a fear of encountering that pain again. Relentlessly, she said, “...but I don’t know. I really like playing frisbee and I managed to overcome that fear.” This is when I realized Bettina as a persistent individual who never lets go of something she’s passionate about; she maintains her drive. Bettina overcame this fear because of her awareness that ultimate frisbee is an inclusive sport. She wants to prove that girls can excel in sports and in other fields, and not only does this through ultimate frisbee, but also with her company. Besides her interest in ultimate frisbee, twenty five-year-old Bettina Chen is also a co-founder of a startup business, called Roominate, which is a “do-it-yourself wired
dollhouse kit, designed to get girls ages 6 and up excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).” Roominate’s goal is to increase the number of girls in technology and engineering fields and spread the message that girls have the potential do well in science fields. In other words, the toy seeks to remove the imbalance of gender equality, which is directly related to the Bettina’s involvement with ultimate frisbee. The kit consists of various, different sized and shaped pieces which can be easily connected with one another as well as circuits with which girls can make their own fans or light bulbs within the dollhouse they build. From a consumer’s point of view, Nehal Mehta thinks, “this is a really really unique product. I have two children myself and while they were growing up, I saw them play with many different kinds of toys. This one, especially for girls, forces them to set it up, be creative, and the wiring part is just fabulous because it gets their mind thinking of the real aspects of how day to day life things that they use are wired up, so it’s really good.” In order to introduce this new toy to more consumers, Bettina and Alice (the other co-founder) host events around the country, in cities like San Francisco and New York. These different events allow Bettina and Alice to discover which aspects the girls like and which they need to work on. Nehal Me-
hta, also the tech mom and social media advisor at Roominate, explains, “Bettina and Alice are continuously improving their product based on their observations of the kids playing with the toys.” During these events, Bettina’s sense of humor and genuine character help her connect with younger girls, encouraging to get involved with STEM in a fun way. When she, herself, was a young girl, Bettina would always build legos with her older brother. However, her childhood wasn’t all smiles and laughter. She emphasizes her older brother’s intellectual capacity by revealing the fact that he went to college after eighth grade and how he seemed to excel in every subject, even outside of school. “So, I think a lot of my childhood I felt overshadowed by my brother,” Bettina admits. In high school, Bettina also felt overshadowed by the males in her class. She despised the fact that , “...there weren’t that many girls in [her] upper level math and science classes.” She noticed that there had been a drop off of women in her area of pursuits throughout her entire educa-
tion, not just high school. While studying electrical engineering at CalTech during her undergrad, Bettina says how there were,
“...27% girls and that’s just within my graduating class, not even counting the department I was in.” After successfully graduating from CalTech, she moved on to Stanford for graduate school, entering with the mindset that there would be an equal amount of girls and boys. Little did she know that Stanford wouldn’t be any different, and when she got there she was shocked to discover how few women there were compared to her undergrad program. She says, “...they didn’t even tell us the percentage of women we had in my department; I think it was probably 10% or less.” During her time spent at Stanford, she met many folks, one of them being Alice Brooks, the other co-founder of Roominate. They bonded over
the act that they were both girls studying in male dominating fields. They noticed this trend which “sparked the thought of why aren’t there more girls in engineering and how can [they] make a difference.” For both Alice and Bettina,
“it really came down to our experiences as kids and the toys that we had played with that really shaped us.” As graduate students at Stanford, Bettina and Alice “definitely bonded over both being females in engineering grad school.” They never foresaw how their futures would interweave with one another. Before they started working cohesively, Alice and Bettina went on a trip to Europe with three other friends. Alice remembers how “the other people drove us a little bit crazy… but I think we kept each other sane on the trip, so we knew we could handle being in a stressful situation together.” This was when they knew that they could work together effectively and
that they would be an ideal team. After this Europe trip, Alice reveals how she “had this vague idea of doing a building toy for girls” and “Bettina was the first person [she] talked to about it and everything went from there.” When asking Alice whether or not she could have started Roominate without Bettina, she admits that she doesn’t think she could have because of how hard working Bettina is and because she thinks,
“....it’s really important when you’re doing a startup to have someone that is an equal teammate that you can really work well with.” Knowing Bettina’s background in ultimate frisbee, Alice blatantly says, “I know she’s a good team member!” Recently, there was an article in the New York Times published about Roominate. The title was “Barbie, not Ken, Does Repairs Here.” “It was a fun and creative way to tell what Roominate is trying to do,” says Bettina, “we actually wanted to make that into a bumper sticker!” Because Bettina wasn’t exposed to anything like Roominate in her childhood, her goal is to change the lives of young girls today by giving them something to be excited about that she knows will brighten their future. Recently, at a Roominate event hosted for a Girl Scout Troop in Menlo Park, I witnessed Bettina interacting and connecting with young girls. The assignment for these girls was to use their creativity to build a ride that could be found in an amusement park. Eight year old, Stephanie, was trying to build a sim-
ulation of a merry-go-round. When sharing her idea with Bettina, Bettina uncovered her soft and caring side and helped Stephanie with her idea by showing her how to connect the pieces and getting Stephanie more familiar with the Roominate kit. Then, she helped Stephanie build one of the seats for her merry-go-round. From there, Stephanie was able to make the rest of the seats exactly how she conceived them to be and was even able to build the base of her ride, which included circuits, all by herself. A little while later, Stephanie ran into an obstacle; she wanted to attach the seats to the base of her ride, but didn’t know how. I watched as she tried many things to solve this problem on her own, but failed to come up with a concrete solution. Bettina came over and after understanding Stephanie’s issue, she found a solution for Stephanie. Instead of flat out telling her what to do, she brought over a bundle of string and placed it in front of Stephanie. Immediately, Stephanie’s eyes lit up and she grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting strands of strings and tying the seats to the base of her merry-go-round. When Bettina viewed her final product, she gave her a high-five because it was so creatively built. Bettina gives girls the confidence they need in order to believe in themselves and make them believe that they are capable of making great things. In the future, Bettina hopes to continue using her kindness and motivation skills to build girls’ confidence and spark their creativity. She and Alice have lots of new and fresh ideas of how they want to expand Roominate’s line. Bettina says how she wants “to introduce more advanced circuits, get girls programming and really just growing with the girl as she gets older with her toy.”
She also want their invention to become more involved in other STEM fields, like biology and chemistry. As for Bettina’s ultimate frisbee life, she hopes that no other major injuries will come her way and that if all goes well, she will continue to play competitively on the mixed team. Being on an ultimate frisbee team and co-owning a company at just the age of twenty five shows how
much potential and drive Bettina has. When she was a young girl, Bettina reveals how her confidence level was low. She dreams to change the lives of other young girls today by giving them that confidence and exposing them to this strategic, problem solving mindset. She says,“...by having an early exposure helps build their confidence because every step of the way, you’re going to be run-
ning into obstacles, whether it’s something’s hard or maybe it’s a lot of boys in your class. But, just having that confidence as a base line I think really helps you continue to pursue what you’re interested in.”
“...just having that confidence as a base line I think really helps you continue to pursue what you’re interested in.”