Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Its Time for Women to Play a Bigger Role in Music Tech

08/04/2020

When alumna Jasmine Kok M.M. '18 began her coursework at Berklees campus in Valencia, Spain, she noticed something: there were no female faculty members and very few female students in Berklee's Music Production, Technology, and Innovation (MPTI) program. Inspired to create a space where women could share their experiences and challenges in the music industry, Kok cofounded She Knows Tech, which seeks to close the gender gap in music technology. In January 2020, right before the Grammy Awards, the group released a video titled It's Time -a one-shot production featuring a wide range of women playing every single role in a live studio session.

Watch the Its Time video:

We spoke to Kok about the inspiration behind the video, the work of She Knows Tech, and why it's important for women to be able to see themselves in every part of the music industry.

Tell us about the inspiration behind She Knows Tech. The idea came about when I was a graduate student at Berklee Valencia, and I noticed the lack of female faculty members in my program. The male-to-female ratio among MPTI students was almost four to one. (This was an improvement over the previous year-it had been 10 to one!) I was surprised to hear from my faculty advisor that women simply aren't applying for these programs. I wondered: does that mean we are not interested? Or not confident?

I wanted to do something, and my program director recommended I form a team. I worked with two other graduate students, Lillian Gagnon and Anna Parry. I couldn't have done it without them. We started as a student activity/peer-to-peer platform. We hosted workshops and interviewed female guests from the industry who came to campus. Most of the women we interviewed were producers, engineers, and technologists, and it was great-but I started to wonder: how effective were these workshops? Were we really making a difference? How could we develop a more sustainable program?

What did you do next? I started talking to a bunch of the female MPTI students about an idea for a mentorship program. We got commitments from five graduate students to mentor four undergraduate students each, offering seven sessions instead of a one-off like a workshop (though we kept doing those, too). I was surprised-we got almost 40 applicants for our first class. We were able to take 20, and almost half of last year's mentees are now in tech-related majors at Berklee.

What has been the impact on the mentees? There are several impacts. First, there's this buzz of excitement that permeates the entire semester-I recorded a track! I learned how to make a beat! The program provides a place to learn skills and share them and be encouraged. The most powerful thing the mentees are walking away with is not the technical knowledge, but the confidence they were able to mirror from their mentors. I've certainly seen that in my own experience-my mentors have helped me by modeling, and I've gained confidence by watching them.

Tell us about the process behind the It's Time video. It's funny-that came about because I was applying for a business internship in Europe, and to complete that application, I had to shoot a video. So I pulled a bunch of students and staff together and had them narrate the impact I hope to make in the industry through She Knows Tech.

I really love that there are a huge range of women in the video: different accents, ages, races, and voices. I was adamant about getting a lot of women of color to participate, because so often the women you do see in the industry are white. I wanted to do it in one shot and make it powerful. Everything in your news feed online is a video, and I wanted people to watch the whole thing.

When you visualize women in the studio, you often see the artist, the artist's girlfriend, a secretary, or a studio manager. I thought, What if we put together a team of women setting up a session? We are more than just those roles. We threw some different thoughts and statistics into the video, too. I wanted to end it with women who are very experienced in this industry anchoring the facts and voices, so we featured several faculty members. And the young girl at the end is one of my piano students from here in Valencia. I'm so glad she and her mom said yes to participating-there's a future element to this work. It doesn't just impact women now, but the future of the industry.

What's next for She Knows Tech? We are in the process of getting registered as a company. Lots of festivals and conferences are getting canceled this spring because of the coronavirus (COVID-19), but I want to continue reaching out to those events to carve out a spot for women to go-to nerd out, basically. When I was at ADE 2019 [the Amsterdam Dance Event, a huge electronic music conference], to my surprise, master classes were mostly attended by men. The youngest was 8 years old! I wanted to create a space where women could inspire each other to own this space. Whether you are confident or not-just to come together and own it.

I also want to collaborate with higher education institutions to help them set up a tech training program. I want to encourage them to open doors for women-the other 50 percent of their clientele! I started doing this work because I was hoping someone would have done it for me. We can wait, or we can all do something.

Related categories:

News

Related Reading

Berklee Online Increases Rates of Female Students, Staff, and Instructors In the last two years, female enrollment at Berklee Online has increased by 65 percent.

Dee Dee Bridgewater Urges Women to Lift Each Other Up The jazz icon joined several Berklee faculty members for a panel discussion on the challenges and triumphs of being a woman in the music industry.

Meet Seven Students from Berklee's Class of 201
LINK: https://www.berklee.edu/news/berklee-now/its-time-women-play-greater-r...
See more stories from berklee

Most recent headlines

06/10/2025

France Tlvisions Wins Prestigious 2025 EBU Technology & Innovation Award in Groundbreaking Collaboration with Dalet

France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...

04/09/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Dalet Win Prestigious 2025 NAB Show Project of the Year Award

Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...

07/08/2025

Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, Redefining In-Car Entertainment Experience

July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...

14/07/2025

L3Harris Secures Contract for Royal Moroccan Air Force C-130 Fleet Upgrade

The Royal Moroccan Air Force hosted a C-130 award ceremony with L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert a...

14/07/2025

Nielsen launches CTV Ad Spend Data into its UK Ad Intel product

UK launch set for September, following on from recent US and Germany releases London - UK, July 14, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, da...

14/07/2025

Telycam Unveils Elgato Stram Deck Plug-in for PTZ Camera Portfolio

SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...

14/07/2025

Nominations Now Open for Best of Show Awards at IBC2025

The awards are open to IBC2025 show exhibitors and offer a valuable platform for companies to raise awareness for the new products and solutions they will be la...

14/07/2025

Clear-Com Expands Arcadia Central Station with Updates In...

Clear-Com is excited to announce a significant expansion of the award-winning Arcadia Central Station with new software updates. Together, these releases dram...

14/07/2025

Daktronics and Grass Valley Announce Strategic Partnershi...

Grass Valley and Daktronics today announced a strategic technology partnership that unites Grass Valley's live production expertise with Daktronics' lea...

14/07/2025

Veset Partners with swXtch io to Deliver Cloud Multicasti...

Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset, and swXtch.io, provider of cloud-based multicast and reliable networking solutions, are partnering to deliver multicast...

14/07/2025

Tintri Supercharges Global Partner Programme with Powerfu...

Tintri , a DDN subsidiary and leader in AI-powered data management solutions, today announces a game-changing and award-winning refresh to its global Partner P...

14/07/2025

HighField AI Now Commercially Available Advancing Broadca...

HighField AI, the broadcast industry's first agentic and multimodal AI platform for automating graphics production, is now commercially available. Developed...

14/07/2025

Encompass powers DAZN global broadcast of FIFA Club World...

Encompass Digital Media has today announced that it has been delivering a complex global services project for DAZN, the world s leading sports entertainment pla...

14/07/2025

MASV Showcases the Future of Mass File Movement and Monet...

MASV (massive.io), the fastest, most reliable large file transfer platform trusted by over 10,000 global organizations, announced today it will showcase its nex...

14/07/2025

Calrec to unveil new Argo Software Updates at IBC 2025 an...

Calrec is introducing a series of usability, customisation and system enhancements across the entire range of Argo consoles at IBC 2025, on Stand 8.C47. Look ou...

14/07/2025

ITV selects Fincons Group as strategic partner for their...

Fincons Group, IT business consultancy and systems integrator company with more than 40 years of experience in the market, is proud to announce a new engagement...

14/07/2025

Intinor Showcases Enhanced User Experience and Workflow F...

Stand 5.F45, IBC2025, Amsterdam, 12 15 September 2025 Intinor returns to IBC to present the latest updates to its Direkt series. A key development on show is ...

14/07/2025

Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL

Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...

14/07/2025

Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on the Weeklong Efforts in Atlanta

Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...

14/07/2025

Netflix ISP Speed Index for June 2025

Back to All News Netflix ISP Speed Index for June 2025 Product 14 July 2025 Global Link copied to clipboard One percent of Internet Service Providers (ISP...

14/07/2025

Netflix Begins Filming 'The Map of Longing' With Alcia Falc, Pablo lvarez, and Georgina Amors

Back to All News Netflix Begins Filming The Map of Longing With Al cia Falc , P...

14/07/2025

100 Days In: Building Forward at Grass Valley

This July marks 100 days since I officially stepped into the role of CEO at Grass Valley, a milestone not of abrupt change, but of confident continuity. Unlike...

14/07/2025

RT Launches New Look Weather Forecasts

Enhancing Public Service Broadcasting with Innovation, Accuracy & Sustainability New regional detail and local towns featured...

13/07/2025

Netflix Expands B&B Universe' with Yu Jae Seok's B&B (WT) and Kian's Bizarre B&B Season 2

Back to All News Netflix Expands B&B Universe' with Yu Jae Seok's B&B ...

13/07/2025

Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB Draft Coverage

Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...

12/07/2025

Retracing Ryan Coogler's Sundance Institute Journey

Ryan Coogler accepting the 2013 Vanguard Award. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez. Editor's Note: In honor of Fruitvale Station s 12th anniversary, we're d...

12/07/2025

Key Code Education Launches New Adobe Premiere Pro Engineer Certification

Key Code Education, the professional training division of Key Code Media, proudly announces a major update to its Adobe Premiere Pro Engineering and Advanced Op...

12/07/2025

Key Code Education Launches New Hands-On Training Programs for Ross Video, Vizrt, EditShare, and SNS

Key Code Education, a leader in instructor-led post production training for over...

12/07/2025

TV Station Groups Launch Texas Flood Relief Efforts

As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...

12/07/2025

DirecTV Adds ViX Premium With Ads to MiEspaol Genre Pack

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...

11/07/2025

2025 Sundance Institute Producers Lab Fellows Announced

PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...

11/07/2025

Superman' Filmmaker James Gunn Reveals the Playlists Inspired by Your Favorite Characters

If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...

11/07/2025

L3Harris Delivers First P-8A Poseidon Aircraft to US Navy

L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...

11/07/2025

WETA Launches WETA+ Free Streaming Service

ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...

11/07/2025

TV Tech's Top Regulatory Stories of 2025

The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...

11/07/2025

Calrec to Feature Suite of Interconnected Audio Solutions at IBC2025

Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...

11/07/2025

Encompass Supports DAZN's Coverage of 2025 FIFA Club World Cup

LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...

11/07/2025

SBE Survey: Certified Broadcast Engineers Earn More

Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....

11/07/2025

SmallHD Unveils Quantum 27 OLED Monitor

CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...

11/07/2025

Tegna Will Pay $225K to Settle FCC Investigation

The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...

11/07/2025

Sens. Markey, Lujn Again Call for FCC Vote on Paramount-Skydance Merger

WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...

11/07/2025

Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...

11/07/2025

Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks Adjusts Broadcast Booths for Rangers, Devils

Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...

11/07/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Clients' Needs With Scalable Cloud-Based Storage

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...

11/07/2025

2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transition to the Cloud

2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...

11/07/2025

A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP

A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff Friday, July 1...

11/07/2025

CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimbledon

CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...

11/07/2025

Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-Serrano 3 Card at MSG

Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...

11/07/2025

'Too Hot to Handle: Italy' Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix

Back to All News Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix Entertainment 11 July 2025 GlobalItaly Link copied to clipboard July 11, 20...