Liz Gerber

Welcome or welcome back to the technical difficulties podcast where we celebrate the careers of amazing female designers and technologists. We are so excited to welcome Raja Shar. Raja is an award-winning educator, industrial designer, and thought leader who's shaping the future of socially responsive design. As an associate project, I'm going to do that again.

We are so excited to welcome Raja Schaar. Raja is an award-winning educator, industrial designer, and thought leader who's shaping the future of socially responsible design. As an associate program director and assistant professor of product design at Drexel University, she's leading groundbreaking interdisciplinary research from wearable tech to maternal health to empowering black girls in STEAM through dance and design. With roots in museum exhibit, design, and a passion for sustainability, Raja's work transforms communities. Get ready for a conversation that redefines what it means to design for justice, health, and humanity. We can't wait to hear from you, Raja. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Raja Schaar

Thanks for having me.

Liz Gerber

So fun. So a warm up question for you, which is, what is your favorite way to start your morning?

Raja Schaar

Oh, favorite way.

Liz Gerber

Yes, not necessarily how you woke up this morning.

Raja Schaar

I feel like I need a routine, but I don't really have a routine. But I think if I did it the way that I planned to, I would actually roll out of bed and have coffee and be walking my dogs with a cup of coffee in hand. But they're a little bit crazy.

Liz Gerber

Lovely. It's okay, we can live in a fantasy world, fantasy world.

Raja Schaar

They don't, I don't know, they zigzag. So if I carried coffee, would be splashing all over me. And also I tend to drink like espresso, so it only lasts for like a sip. But in my mind, it's like a big steaming mug or like a thermal mug. And I'm like sauntering down the sidewalk with my little dogs totting along. But instead it's more like I'm getting twisted up.

Liz Gerber

I love that. I love this.

Raja Schaar

So yeah, I've never actually done it, but it's a fantasy. How's that?

Liz Gerber

I love that. I love this.

It's a fantasy. love maybe that should be the question. That's a fantasy. My fantasy is-

Raja Schaar

Yeah, but instead I, you know, I sometimes I get the coffee down before they are barking too loud at me to go like, let's go, let's go.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, you do enthusiasm. You got to go with what you got. Thank you for that. My next warm up question is what is your favorite creativity tool and broadly defined you you decide.

Raja Schaar

Hmm, creativity tool. Besides my brain.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Ooh, wait, say more about your brain. I want to hear more about that as a tool.

Raja Schaar

Well, you know, that's where the ideas come from. They live up there in the, the, in the cerebellum or whatever, the prefrontal cortex, I actually don't know where creativity lives, but it's up there. But I'm trying to think, I definitely am a maker. So maybe it's my hands. Maybe the tool actually is my hands, but you know, from pencil to needle to, I mean, all the things that you can do to make stuff. But I think, I think I would have to say hands.

Liz Gerber

I love hands.

Raja Schaar

Which is, but you can use your hands to like mold stuff, to write stuff, to scribble, to punch, to knock over, to build. So, yeah.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Yeah. Two questions. Do you have a preference for the right or left and do wish you had a third hand?

Raja Schaar

I am right-handed. I would say it's not my preference. I don't really care which hand. I actually broke my right hand in fifth grade and it was the first time ever that I had A's on my handwriting because I was using my left hand and I had to actually slow down to write the letters. So everybody's like, oh, you actually ambidextrous. I was like, I think maybe I might be left-handed, but I just never used it. So, but I think.

Liz Gerber

What do you do now? That's fascinating. So what do you write with?

Raja Schaar

I write with my right hand, but if I need to use my left hand for something, I can do it.

Liz Gerber

Whoa, that's very cool.

Raja Schaar

It's not back and forth, it's not, definitely like my default is my right, feel like. So I'm right handed, I think. But I don't prefer the right hand. I prefer whatever hand is closest to the thing.

Liz Gerber

Okay, and if I could give you a third hand, would you take it? Attach to your body in some weird world.

Raja Schaar

Yes. It would be go go gadget. I'd have like a hat that would spring out and it would be my go go gadget hand.

Liz Gerber

I love those animals that use the tails as sort of hands. I've often thought a tail could be a useful third hand. Thank you for those warm-ups. We'll now move on to your career. So the question I have for you, I'd like to start with is how did you get started in the field of technology and design? Was there a, like, I'm a designer moment or was it only in retrospect? How do you think about that?

Raja Schaar

Well, I think, you know, initially, like as a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up, was like, had a list of 15 things in order. Like, okay, first I'll do this, then I'll do this, then I'll do this.

Liz Gerber

Okay, what were they? Give us some examples.

Raja Schaar

Well, one was I was going to be environmental lawyer. Then I was going to run my own advertising agency like Angela Bauer did on Who's the Boss. So I'll be a CEO.

Liz Gerber

She was amazing! Okay.

Raja Schaar

And then when I retire, I was going to be a kindergarten teacher or dance instructor. And then, anyway, then I was going own a bakery. Then I was going own a... So all these things could still happen, but...

Liz Gerber

They very much could, and in some ways they are still happening. You've woven parts of these into your life.

Raja Schaar

Yeah. But the reason I wanted to be environmental lawyer is because I just felt like we were just polluting the planet. And so then I kind of got interested in engineering and design or making stuff or what's involved in kind of figuring out how to make things. And I would say that that cemented around middle school where it became more focused on having fun in classes like the industrial arts class, where we would build everything from like model cars or play around the dark room or whatever, was just like a fun making class.

Liz Gerber

Wow, and you had that in middle school?

Raja Schaar

Yeah, it was called Industrial Arts. Yeah, and I did it like that.

Liz Gerber

Wow, that's cool. Okay, and meanwhile, you're also watching Angela Baueron, Who's The Boss, be a, she was kind of a unique figure at that time. She was a female entrepreneur and leader, right? And she had a man who worked for her as her nanny, essentially, right?

Raja Schaar

Yeah, and she was running a creative career. Like it was like someone who was coming up with ideas and talking about them at home and going back and working with clients. you know, it was interesting to actually see what life was like in a day in the life outside of like a newspaper or ER or a cop, you know, precinct.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, yeah right, it was an alternative career.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, like we actually got to see her think about it and like, and also like compete for different things. So. That was interesting, think. There's moments like that, and there's also watching Tom Hanks in big was also a big moment for me too.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, what did that one do for you? That got me into the toy industry, but what did it do for you?

Raja Schaar

Yes, exactly, that's it. I was like, this is how they make decisions on all the toys that I want to change. And I have some ideas, I have some complaints. Apparently, I can have a focus group and I can sit around a room full of suits and be the smartest person in the room because apparently adults don't know anything about toys. So that seems pretty simple. Yeah. So like those were, I would say like, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade is when I kind of got interested on the design side. And I wouldn't say it was so much interested in technology for technology's sake, except that I, you my parents had us, we had a subscription to Scientific American and we'd always like buy these things from the catalog.

Liz Gerber

What would you buy from the catalog? Like what's an example?

Raja Schaar

And so, and then we'd go to Radio. You know, slides and microscopes and telescopes and all these science experiments, all these STEM kits before they called them STEM kits.

Liz Gerber

I love it.

STEM kids, right? And then you go to Radio Shack, which is a crazy blast from the past. What was possible?

Raja Schaar

Yep. And then we had like the Robbie robot. Do you, don't know if you remember it. was like this remote control robot with a tray and it had probably proximity sensors, like, you know, for eyeballs and it would bring you a drink and watching the Jetsons and like having this Robbie robot.

Liz Gerber

Another cartoon of the future, right?

Raja Schaar

Yeah. I was like, my gosh, let's finally like Rosie's coming to life.

So I would say I was enamored with it, but didn't really want to do anything. But my mom is heavily, she had her specialist degree in instructional technology.

Liz Gerber

Oh, is that right? Wow.

Raja Schaar

So she was very big and then she taught as an adjunct at the university and she was a social worker and then a media specialist and then teaching computer classes and had us coding or working in spreadsheets and doing Excel formulas so we could help her with like inventory for the library. And I was like, I don't want to have anything to do with coding or computers. Mom, this is so boring. And she was like, well, I need you to build this website. So here's HTML, you're gonna learn it. And I was like, I'm never gonna have to use this ever in my life. I don't know why.

Liz Gerber

Wait, seriously, your mother made you learn HTML? That's a great...

Raja Schaar

Yeah, in high school, I thought it was the biggest waste of time. And then I got to college and I realized that I could use things and people or struggling to use those things. And I like, this is, I learned this in 10th grade. This is, Yeah, so anyway, long story short, as my mom got me comfortable with learning technology, and it didn't seem laborious, but it wasn't something that I thought I chose to do. I was very much into the hands-on, making, touching things. My sister actually went into computer science in undergrad, and I was like, no, I wanna paint and build. But then I started using like, computers for a lot of stuff. I would say probably high school I got into it and by college I was adept with it and then that's it.

Liz Gerber

The rest is history. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that your mother made you do things that you thought were ridiculous.

Raja Schaar

Yes, yes, she forced me to sit in front of a very slow computer. Just so we're clear, we're talking about 30 years ago. It was painful. Painful.

Liz Gerber

I'm sure it was exceptionally slow, painfully slow. Excellent. Actually, I have a different question. I've been thinking about the speed of technology now and how quick everything happens. Do you think there was any benefit to the slowness at that time?

Raja Schaar

Okay, so I'm...

Liz Gerber

Or did I was that a leading question? That was the leading question. What do you think?

Raja Schaar

No, I mean, okay. I don't think it's leading. This is my reflection on it. The slowness of technology, I think from a macro pace, I think allowed us to really be intentional about the way we were using it and kind of plan for it and come up with ideas about how it should be used and then build technology to act with those ideas. Now we have technology like what should we do with this? should we do with this? What should we do? We should do something with it immediately tomorrow, like, and then make money off of it and then change it. And then it gets ahead of us. So I feel like technology is getting ahead of us. But also I recently was watching the Gilmore Girls, like I've been bingeing it. And one of the very first episodes, there's a mother and daughter, so Lorelai and her daughter Rory. Her daughter's going to a new school. And so her mother decides to get Wi-Fi or DSL for the household and she was like how dare you get us DSL I want dial-up because it's slow enough that while we're logging on we can make a sandwich and go do laundry and do all these other things before the and I was thinking about the pace of just like, and, like everything is so immediate. We expect it to be there and even like getting a text like you got my text, right? It's like yeah, but used to be able to like come home taking shoes off and then listen to a message and then take your time to decide when you wanted to do it. But now the expectation is because everyone knows on the other side, it's instantaneous, there's no downtime, there's no slow time. So that's gonna be my answer to the slow. I think it's okay for slow. I think slow can be good in many ways. Intentional, careful, but also gives us time to just be present.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, presence is a, it seems like an increasingly fleeting resource. Thank you for that. Continuing. What is one surprising thing you've learned so far in your career journey? And it could be, and it could be a career failure moment if you want to be vulnerable for a moment, or it could be a wild success. Or both.

Raja Schaar

I guess one, okay, one surprising thing, and maybe this is just like a personal philosophical reflection, that I don't feel like enough people are afraid of the consequences of the decisions they make.

Liz Gerber

Oh, interesting. Okay, interesting.

Raja Schaar

I mean, was just talking to, someone was just here like helping repair like a retaining wall. And we were kind of talking about, not a lot of people have seen like Terminator.

Like, you know what I mean? Like we're in this day and age where like, you know, AI is taking over and we only know how it's working and the computers are talking to each other and they're building their own language. it's like, realize that like we've set up all these like scenarios and stories that kind of told us about like what the worst case scenario could be. And it seems that everyone is hurtling towards it faster. Like they're like, yeah, let's see if that actually will happen. I'm like, or not. I guess people aren't afraid enough, healthy level of respect for the tools that we've created. And I would say that's like something that you would expect when you're doing safety trainings in like a shop, right? Here's a lathe, here's a bandsaw, here's this thing. Have a healthy level of respect for this tool that is very useful in helping you create and make and cut up and do all these things so that you can build homes and houses and furniture, but also can cut your fingers off, right? And there's something about that, sort of just safety briefing that doesn't seem to have sunk in on the technology side as much. And I think we're doing it with like warnings, like things like, security warnings or privacy things. We just sign our lives away. Just like, it'll be okay. So I'm a little, that's one surprise I have is not enough people seem to be as concerned as I would think. So yeah.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, I love your example of the lathe because I was just in the machine shop yesterday and I introduced the lathe as the thing that, you know, could seriously harm you. I gave you like that was that was part of the introduction. You can do amazing things and this could really hurt you. And what strikes me about what you're saying is I wonder going back to the body and our relationship to the body. It's it's it's easy for us to imagine losing our hand and how devastating that would be. And I just wonder if the cost of using these other tools is just too far away, not visible.

Raja Schaar

Mmm.

Liz Gerber

But like, there's, if that's why we're the, we don't heed these warnings, right? Somebody says you're going to cut your hand off. You listen.

Raja Schaar

Yeah.

Liz Gerber

Somebody says, you know, you're cognitive, you're going to cognitively decline and lose your memory and not be able to interact with human beings anymore. Not that that's, I'm not saying that's the, that's one worst case scenario. And it's like too far off to, to imagine that.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, the abstractness of it, think is something and also the time, I don't, you know, we've talked about 10 to spans, but I think we can also just think about how far out people can imagine things. And like I read somewhere a couple years ago that like more than like two weeks out, like the human brain is like, I can't, I don't know. don't check back later. Like I can't imagine that far. Like our ability to foresee a future because there's so many different possibilities is so overwhelming when our brain actually attempts to do it. So I think that the discomfort or the cognitive dissonance with things going wrong, like our brain protects itself, right? It's like, okay, don't even like, you know, they say intrusive thoughts. Like if you imagine, like you just said, cutting your hand off, you're like, I don't want to think about that.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, right away. Yeah.

Raja Schaar

So, or immediately like your brain is like, no, we just won't stick our hand there and we don't have to worry about it.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, correct.

Raja Schaar

Like that's how we'll do it. We'll just be safe. So I think that there is a level of either like the lack of imagination where we just can't imagine like what it would be like if it went wrong because there is no visual of like losing a finger when you talk about like what's the consequence of loss of privacy or data mining or any of these things. But I do think that for a lot of people, we need to figure out a way to share it. And I guess it's not Terminator. I guess it's not some Android cyborg or anything like that. But there's got to be some way that we can just talk about these consequences, especially as we're teaching students. mean, think teaching proper procedures, safety, PPE, the digital version, the technological, the digital version of you know, personal protective equipment, like what does that look like in a way that people are comfortable with the consequences but still comfortable with using the tool. So like I'm learning to use the tool, I'm gonna use this tool, I'm gonna apply this, I have this vision for the thing I wanna build using it, but I also know how to do it safely without hurting myself or others.

Liz Gerber

Mmm.

I love the idea of digital, the digital PPE is brilliant. Yeah, really brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much. So in your learning journey, imagine, well, clear, I love the role that popular media has played in your life. I think it's brilliant. I think enough people don't talk about it, so thank you for sharing all those. I'm wondering in the real world if you've had mentors who have played a particularly important role in your life, if they pushed you forward during times of uncertainty, and if there's any advice they shared or particular moments.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, so I would say, like, an early mentor that I had at university. So I went to Georgia Tech for undergrad. And one of the people I encountered there for, I mean, I guess throughout my life, she passed away recently, was Billy Pendleton Parker. And I would say that there probably 1,000 people that would probably say that she was like a close mentor of theirs who took care of them.

Liz Gerber

Which is, wow, what an amazing human being to have that kind of influence.

Raja Schaar

She was an amazing human being. one of the things that she'd always say was, strive for significance, not success. And it was one of those things that, oh and perfection is boring. She'd always tell us that. So I think she was around a lot of these type A students who were finally being challenged for the first time, and everybody was kind of falling apart. And I'm sorry, my dog is trying to play with the other dogs. I gotta like pause for one second because I have to like, yeah.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, pause. Do what you need to do. Yep, no problem.

Raja Schaar

No, not right now guys. Tyson, can you play later? I have to hold on just a second. Sorry, he woke up from a nap and now he wants to play. Give me one second. I'm gonna be throwing a toy for the next couple seconds. Sorry about that. Once he's ready to play, it's like, and he just, he picks on one, one of the brother dogs and then annoys the heck out of him while he sleeps. And then they bark at each other. This is every day. I'm so sorry. Tyson.

Liz Gerber

That's okay. That's okay. Okay. No, don't.

Every day. Well, as you were, you were just saying perfection is boring. Right? If you just had dogs that sat on couches and behaved, that would be boring. This is, this is not perfection. This is, this is them expressing. Yeah.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, perfection is boring. And I think- yeah. So one of the things that she talked about was like striving for significance. And it was, she was saying, it's not about success. It's not about being, not about winning. It's not about the acclaim. It is like the impact that you make on the world. And she was one of the people that really pushed me as like a student into leadership roles. Like even like once I became like a faculty member when I was teaching at Tech, before I was teaching at Drexel.

Like always like in my corner, like my kids met her, like she was really wonderful, but she kept it real and kind of kept everyone grounded. And I think that for me in particular, I did a lot of work related to sort of like pushing, pushing for more presence and more places for women on campus. Cause at the time that I was at Tech, think it was like maybe 25 or 30%, like 27 % like women.

Liz Gerber

Are you sure it's even that high? I would guess it was even lower.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, yeah. So like, yeah, it was like, I think the ratios have improved, but it was pretty bad. And so like, helping establish like a women's resource center, like it was like president of like the women's awareness week, and I was like, president of the women's student union, but like, these are like roles I would not have taken on without her encouraging me to just like put my hat in the ring. So just try it, see how it goes, don't worry about being perfect. Just try to create some legacy and significance for the people that are following you so that these things can continue and so that you can make a difference. And it's not about your name on it. It's about like who you're serving. And it was very much a servant leader role. And I would say that's something that's carried with me kind of everywhere. It's like, how, how can what I'm doing now create some positive change for the immediate community for the people that I'm working with, for the people that are following me. I think from a generational standpoint too, like one of the quotes that I came across like as an adult was like, know, and I can't, I'm thinking I'm messing it up. It's like a Greek proverb that says like a wise man plants seeds for a tree under which the shade he will never sit or something like that.

Liz Gerber

Thats beautiful.

Raja Schaar

You probably heard some version of it, right? But this idea of like being a steward. And so the significance of what you're doing today is long lasting long after your name is forgotten, right? And it should be, and it should be something where you're creating some benefit. And then like, you know, even as a Girl Scout, like he was like, you know, leave a place better than you found it. So I think like as a designer, that's something that is something that's kind of followed me and kind of been in my ears. Like, I creating harm with what I'm doing? Or even as an instructor, am I creating some positive change? How will this change have some sort of like lasting effect?

And how will that continue to improve the conditions of people going forward? And I think that that's something that I think about when I interact with students, other faculty, when I was doing client work. But I don't know, that's something that I can't get away from in the back of my head. And so it was never about titles or positions or where I was, was just wherever I am, you know, what am I doing to like create some positive change here?

Liz Gerber

Yeah, so one question I get is, especially from younger generations, like, how will people know about me and know to hire me if they don't associate my name with the work? And I'm curious how you would respond to that.

Raja Schaar

I would say maybe, I can only talk about my direct career. It seems that people find you if you're just doing the work. I also am in a generation where I don't really get LinkedIn. I'm like, ah! I mean, I don't know. I'm not just saying, I shouldn't even say it's a homo-brah. Every time someone posts something amazing on it, I'm like, oh my, that's so great! I just don't tend to post very many things about me because I just don't have time.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, you're busy doing the stuff. Yeah.

Raja Schaar

I'm just doing this stuff. part of me is like, if you're just doing this stuff, then you're going to be interacting with people. And this is just like happenstance, but it's also, it's not just serendipity. It is cause and effect. Like if you, if you were interacting with people who know you, they know people who know you in this list, this sort of like a fractal nature of social networks, real or I mean, in real life or digital ones, I think is super important. But it's also like being present, showing up, opening your mouth, offering to the conversation. And I do think, yeah, it is important to have your name findable so that someone can at least tag you or find you somewhere. But I found that usually people will share people's names. like, you know, they talk about like, role models, mentors, and sponsors. And sponsors are people who mention your name in a room where you aren't so that opportunities can become available to you. And I think sponsorship doesn't get talked about enough, but people do that still. So they like, just met this person who has impressed me or did something really cool, or you've really got to meet them. And this introduction that will happen usually means that names get out there. And I don't think it has to be out there on the marquee, I think sometimes it just needs to be connecting you to the person you need to be talking to. So that could be just a one-on-one intimate conversation. It could be putting you in front of a big group. It could be putting you onto a team of people who are amazing that you're contributing to. But I do think that that's where the significance comes in, is if you are making enough of a mark in what you're doing, then the success will find you and if success to you looks like your name on things, then that's fine. But usually it should be about like the work that you're leaving behind. In my mind, and that's just the lesson that I've learned, right? Yeah.

Liz Gerber

I love that. Yeah. I love that tree. It reminds me of a quote my mentor shared with me, which is related to innovation, which is he said, when you plant a seed every day, you don't pull the dirt away and look how the seed is doing. So connecting that with your with your seed analogy, there's certain things, right?

Raja Schaar

I love that, I love that. It's like a watch pot never boils, you just gotta let it cook.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You got to you got to let it cook a little like and have some faith that it's going to pop up. Right.

Raja Schaar

And I would say that I have some mentees, like younger people, they're like, oh my gosh, I mean, you've already done so much stuff and I'm only 27 and I haven't done, I'm like, 27, 27. LinkedIn didn't even exist when I was 27, did it? I even know. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like that was 20 years ago for me. You have time, like, unless you have a terminal diagnosis or you know when your time is up, like you had the rest of your life and then, you know, I don't know, maybe I saw too many of the Vera Wing things where she started her career in wedding dresses when she was like 40 or, you know, they send out all those things, but I'm like, you have plenty of time. Yeah.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. those stories are so important. I find those stories are so important because I mean my own kids sometimes, you know, I hear people say like, if I didn't start that sport or that instrument when I was three, I can't do it. And I'm thinking, my gosh, this is, you know.

Raja Schaar

But even like instruments, mean, I'm so many cool people that I'm learning viola. Like, you know, like they're my age, I'm 47- I don't remember how old I am. think I'm 47. 47. But people that are my age older, they're like still picking up new things. My mom is an example of that. She's like, oh, my dad too. But they always like, oh, we're going back and get a certification or another degree. And I'm like, why? But lifelong learning.

Liz Gerber

I love it. Are they still coding in a HTML? Oh, sorry. didn't. Lifelong learning. What were you saying?

Raja Schaar

Yes. Lifelong learning. But like we have a whole life, I guess. And that's.

There's no rush and I feel like social media puts so much pressure because you see maybe certain names over and over and over again. But some of those names you see are people that have put in 30 years of work and now you're starting to see their name. Not everyone is a 27 or 29 year old protege who's like, know, every single lecture circuit, podcast, social media, reel. You know, so I do think understanding that it does take time but the significance will be more impactful than anything if you just focus on the legacy that you're leaving behind and not so much about what, I guess the current, I guess, a currency of success, which is like social media mentions.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, well articulated. Okay, so you are a lifelong learner. You are probably still thinking about things you want to learn or do. Do you have any big ones in the horizon that you're seeing?

Raja Schaar

Yes, okay, so I have really been missing the making of the design part. So I started in design as a maker and the tools that we use so much are digital tools, whether or not I get to make a model or not, you know, from creating floor plans to creating schematics to creating code, like it's so much on a computer and I hate being on a computer.

Liz Gerber

Why?

Raja Schaar

Because I lose track of what's happening in the real world and I want to be out in the real world. So one of the things that I'm like really interested in in terms, I think I want to learn how to be an electrician. Like I think I want to get an electrician's license.

Liz Gerber

Oh, say more. It's very powerful, but I'm curious.

Raja Schaar

So I'm interested in sort of these practical skills that are needed for like large scale infrastructure. This is like distributed power systems, right? But understanding how that works, how to repair them.

Should an apocalypse happen and things go haywire, we're going to need people to get back on this grid, because everybody can do it. And with my hands, I could climb up a pole, I could be a lineman and help rewire things when the trees fall down with all this extreme weather that's happening. But like there's something about the practical ability to like navigate current or electricity so that we can power some of these things like air conditioning and life support systems and dialysis equipment and maybe the internet or whatever that looks like, we're going to need electricity. So that's something that I am interested in doing. I have looked at some community college classes to see if I could do that. But it allowed me hands on, not just sitting in front of a computer, but still connected to the grid.

Liz Gerber

Both metaphorically and literally. There's so much in that.

Raja Schaar

Yes! And I know, and I just feel like that's gonna be something I need to know intimately should bad things happen. And by the way, bad things happen. People are having storms and trees are falling down on light poles all the time.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, it's happening. Right.

Raja Schaar

So this is not like just like a worst case scenario thing, but I do think it's practical.

Liz Gerber

Very practical. And how did you choose like electricity versus like plumbing?

Raja Schaar

I don't like poop. That's pretty much it. Sludge and poop, I'm not into it

Liz Gerber

Or... That's totally fair. Yeah, that's not so. Okay, electricity.

Raja Schaar

I do think that we need it, but I just, maybe somebody else. Yeah.

Liz Gerber

Okay, that's fair. Or food systems or other court. Okay, I love it, I love it. So much to say there. So we were talking about tools earlier and I'm gonna try and connect this to electricity. If you could design a tool that would empower the next generation of young female leaders in tech and design, what do you think it would be?

Raja Schaar

Oh my gosh. Does it have to be a practical? Can it be conceptual?

Liz Gerber

No, it can be conceptual, whatever you want.

Raja Schaar

Oh, a bullshit meter.

Liz Gerber

Ooh, say more. How would that work?

Raja Schaar

Well, you know, I think that so many people are so focused on like how they can show up and be like the best performer in a career. And so I think what goes into that sort of driven or ambitious personality is a certain level of trust. And I think when you're so focused on maybe the academic or the learning or the practical side of things, the people reading side of things, that part of your brain is not as attuned. So I do think that the people can focus on their craft. They need something else to offload the reading and distrust of people so that they can actually know who to trust, who not to trust, who to collaborate with. I think just looking at history, how much of the accomplishments of women and minorities, whether underrepresented or not, have been discounted or stolen over the and, you know, trusting that people will just see your contribution for what it is and give credit where credit's due. And maybe this is going back to what I was saying before. So few people are focused on getting the credit, that they're so focused on the impact. And again, maybe there's some level of altruism there, maybe it's naiveté. So how do you make sure that you have enough credit, not just from a money standpoint, but think about how many more women would have been involved in STEM, STEAM careers with more of this sensitivity on like the psychological side, the social sciences, and bringing all of that together if they had known that how many women had contributed to where we are right now in terms of like our current state of technology and communication. Like knowing that there was a place for them.

And so when there's not, and your name is not mentioned when you're erased from the conversation, erased from the history, then the story can't be told and the story can't go on to inspire. And if that story can't go on to inspire, then people say that it's not really a place for me. There is only a place for these types of people. So, and, I also think that like even navigating careers in terms of like mentorship and just knowing, understanding like the people's own past traumas from like how they've been able to get to where they are may mean that they're holding on to some values that don't serve our current generation. And I would say like looking at capitalism, like neo-colonialism, looking at white supremacy and looking at how a lot of that's permeated like work culture, industry, you know, commercialization and how we like extract and take resources. And it's all about the survival of the fittest and winning, winning, winning at any cost. And that's very much suited in like patriarchy and capitalism which is I would say if people would start from scratch, like how would you like to go about running your business or participating in society? Those people will say like, I don't really want to step on other people's backs. I just want to be here doing good stuff and things that I make work for me and it might work for you. And it'd be great to share those things and it would be great to make a living off of it and have some money left over to give to my kids. Right. And I do think that for a lot of women in technology, they think, if I have to walk the walk, talk the talk in order to be in the room, especially if you're in a situation where you're one of 10, like, you know, or in some industries, I think industrial design just happens to be like low numbers, which is my industry. There's very few women for men. So oftentimes you're one of 10 or two of 10. And so there's sort of like this attitude that you sort of adopt in like it's internalized misogyny, honestly. So how do we understand how to read within ourselves? Am I acting this way because this is like true to my ethos or am I acting this way because it's expected of me? And also why are these other people out in this role or this team? Why are they behaving in this way? And is this really the way that we should be going about doing things? And I think being able to like read that would be great.

Tyson hi, baby.

Liz Gerber

Hmm. So it's like a BS tool and maybe a reflection tool too.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, reflection tool too. Yes. Yes. Like a mirror.

Liz Gerber

It's like reading others and understanding. Yeah, it's a mirror.

Raja Schaar

Yeah, it's a mirror and a scope. Yeah.

Liz Gerber

And a scope, you're in a scope. Thank you. I will wrap up with a question about advice. What maybe unexpected advice would you have for young women aspiring to be in the space of, what I would call it, community-centered design for you, really working closely with communities. What advice would you have?

Raja Schaar

I think understanding the value of lived experience. think so much of us are focused on like what knowledge we bring, like what practices we bring. But I do think there's something that should not ever be discounted in terms of like, what is your lived experience? How do you trust yourself? How do you trust your gut? that's, it's something that pairing that with your technical knowledge with your experience, your time in the field, so to speak, I think is important. And I think one of those things is happening right now a lot in the conversations around, for my age, perimenopause. Suddenly it's off the top of everyone's tongue. And something that I've been very openly talking about ever since I started having a hot flash. What is this cooking from the inside thing that's happening? I was like, why don't we talk about this enough? And there's so much that doesn't happen when, you're like, well, I can't talk about these personal issues because those are separate from what I'm doing for my career. And I think oftentimes being able to have these conversations about personal matters and figuring out how they intersect with our career knowledge, I think is where the best marriage comes from because that's when from our lived experience, we can understand how we could apply design or technology or food or whatever, insert hospitality towards these problems that are like focused on a large swath of society, 50%, right? That is going to be affected by this. And so we start to understand there's some value there. And I think if we only receive or understand the value of what we might do from external people telling us what's valuable or telling us what's new and what's next then we're going to miss a lot of not just low hanging fruit, but like super critical things. So if we only focus on AI, because that's what they told us we should be doing, then what are we missing? And I think if we reflect on what is going on in your life every day, aging parents, kids, traffic, like your dog wants to play with the other dog. These kinds of like things that are part of your lived experience inform other people's lived experiences too, because we have a lot of shared things. And a lot people will see value in slowing down and paying attention to those and figure out a way to create solutions together around those. And I think that that's what community-based design is, is people giving some credit and some weight to everyday experiences and taking it seriously and actually doing something about them with the communities that's there and taking what we consider anecdotal data, stories that people can tell and create turning those into some valuable inputs and design constraints that we can then solve around or create solutions around. And I think so much of us ignore that because we think, well, that's not important because I didn't go to school or that person didn't go to school. This community member has lived here long enough. But I think that there's value in almost everyone's lived experience. And I think especially if you were going to be in the service of designing for and creating tools and technology for others then you have to really understand that every bit of data, every story is valuable, including your own.

Liz Gerber

Every story is valuable, including your own. It's a beautiful, beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much. Wow. Thank you for sharing those stories with us, Raja, really. And thank you for to our listeners for listening to the technical difficulties podcast produced by the Center for Human Computer Interaction and Design and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. That was Raja Schaar. And you can find out more about her in the show notes. You can learn more about the show by going to technical difficulties podcast.com or drop us a note at technical difficulties.team at gmail.com or leave us a review on your favorite podcast app.