[Photo credit: Karen Peterson]

Greetings from the desert of the real, otherwise known as downtown Tucson, AZ. It’s my first visit to the Grand Canyon State, and I’ve been really struck by the size of the sky and the sepianess of its light. And all the cacti and sagebrush. But mostly, I’ve been struck by the efficacy, sensibility and change-affecting potential of the National Girls Collaborative Project‘s collaborative model. In a nutshell, for those of you unfamiliar with the organization, the NGCP is a national, NSF-funded project comprised of regional/state collaboratives comprised of girl-serving STEM organizations. Through their website, conferences and this annual institute, the national NGCP assists and educates the regional collaboratives in finding, funding and raising awareness about their local organizations. It’s a fantastic model, and one, that, as I tweeted yesterday, reminds me of Hadoop’s: tap into the resources of many through a central hub, maximizing output and minimizing waste.

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