WomenWhoCode + Qventus
It was 3am. After wrapping up assignments, my roommates and i were finally getting back to doing chores, reading emails etc. Our program manager, had emailed us about a hackathon hosted by ESPN called ESPNW at Stanford University. Carnegie Mellon students winning on Stanford turf, was an opportunity that no Carnegie Mellon student would give up. We show up the next day, collect the freebies(as any college student would), develop our app for the next 24 hours and were super excited.
Over 200 developers, of which 70% were women presented on the stage that day. Presenting on the stage, my team and i, quietly said to ourselves, “We are not the only all-women team here, woohoo!”. My roommates and i were infamous for being the only all-women team in all the hackathons we’ve been to. This was possible, this was happening, here i am, standing in front of room filled with women in tech. A while later i read this quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that”.
A lot of things fell into perspective. Things made more sense.
Fast forward, and we are now in Silicon Valley. And the numbers here, as reality has it, are far from being ideal. The sheer imbalance in ratio, was quite unsettling and i was not going to stop unless i found some answers. I would not let my subjective experience, let me form an opinion. If not my immediate surrounding, surely there has to be a place where like minded women in tech gather. And luckily meetup.com launched around the same time frame, and there i was trying to find a meetup for like minded women who code.
Soon enough, i found myself going to several events organized by Women Who Code(WWC) and PyLadies. These meetups, were created as a way to gather women in tech from different disciplines, to meet, interact and share their experiences. How effective have they been? Well, they’ve connected over 80,000 women globally, produced 4,200 free technical events in 20 countries. I have met some really smart and driven women, some of whom have become my mentors and some have become really great friends.
Some folks might argue that diversity programs/events end up being an excuse for preferential treatment. Let me clarify to all the skeptics out there — IT IS NOT. They are merely meant to be a platform to encourage people, to spread the message that you are not alone, together we are strong and will continue to be. When you are surrounded by people who believe in you, who give you that extra push, during the challenging times. People who let you fight that insecurity and let you emerge more powerful and strong than you ever could have imagined.
After joining Qventus(previously known was analyticsMD), i have had the opportunity to work with people who shared similar beliefs. The founders and the executive team, acknowledge the problem that exists with diversity numbers and are dedicated to making it better. As the first step towards that goal, we hosted our first Women Who Code meetup titled “Lightning Tech Talks”.
It was inspiring to see WWC members, present on several technical topics. Topics covered in the talks were — Programming in Go, Introduction to Qt, Machine Learning in eCommerce, Fighting human trafficking with data, to name a few.
Here’s a pic from the event !
PS:
Fun fact 1: Zassmin Montes, who is the CTO & Board vice chair at Women Who Code, was also a participant in the ESPNW hackathon! She might possibly not remember me, but i do remember her from the event!
Fun fact 2: Women Who Code was also part of the YCombinator 2016 batch. They received a charitable donation from YC.
More Urls:
https://www.womenwhocode.com/about
https://www.wired.com/2012/11/women-developers-and-athletes-take-the-leading-role-at-espnw-hack-day/
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/02/y-combinator-accepts-second-ever-tech-diversity-non-profit/
