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
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
January 8, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), a leader in high-performance, on-s...
07/05/2026
February 9, 2024
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning pioneer i...
07/05/2026
March 20, 2024
NAB 2024, Las Vegas - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-awa...
07/05/2026
April 1, 2025
CINEMACON, APRIL 1, 2025 - Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming syste...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), an Academy and Emmy Award-winning de...
07/05/2026
June 15, 2025
Colorfront participated in the ICTA Barcelona Cinema Technology Summit on Sunday, June 15, 2025. Held at The Phenomena Experience, the event feat...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
July 1, 2025
Passion and dedication will take you places. Come with us on a short trip to the heart of India, where Annapurna Studios is living-up to the inspi...
07/05/2026
July 3, 2025
Colorfront (colorfront.com), the multi-award-winning developer of high-performance dailies/transcoding/streaming systems for motion pictures, OTT,...
07/05/2026
September 1, 2025
IBC 2025, Amsterdam - Colorfront (colorfront.com) - the Acade...
07/05/2026
April 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES - April 17, 2026 - Colorfront today announced Colorf...
07/05/2026
April 23, 2026
NAB 2026, Las Vegas - the Academy and Emmy Award-winning develop...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Back to All News
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix Present the Trailer of ...
07/05/2026
Production sound mixer Dirk Sciarrotta has mixed Family Feud for 28 seasons. Thats up to 200 syndicated episodes per year, plus primetime celebrity specials - a...
07/05/2026
As audience expectations have evolved, Owen has stopped trying to hide microphones or excuse amplification. Instead, he treats sound as a fully immersive part o...
07/05/2026
Well known Irish faces pushed to the edge in new series of
Uncharted with Ray G...
07/05/2026
RT will premiere A Traveller Family, a compelling new documentary exploring the...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
06/05/2026
Peacock is going all-in on the beautiful game - streaming all 104 FIFA World Cup...
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. 
