One complaint that I heard a bunch last year – and levelled myself – was that it was so student focused there wasn’t a lot for mid-career women.
But last night I went to two events that were really different from other events I’ve attended before at GHC! So exciting.
First was Munchies, Mojitos & Making Things, which Hilary Mason from FastForward Labs hosted along with Accel and SHE++. This was super fun! Great (virgin) pina colada, and cute little cards with circuits to make them light up.
Our next stop was the iOSatGHC event, which was super fun. @NatashaTheRobot, @ayanonagon and @kristinathai organised and hosted it. There was great swag (I finally have a selfie stick!) and delicious food. Even better though was how they opened it – it’s not a recruiting event, it’s about getting together and connecting about iOS and building cool things. Come talk about jobs if you want (at sponsor companies: Capital One, Intuit, Venmo, Instagram, Lyft), but recruiting wasn’t the purpose of the evening.
I took one of my friend’s daughters with me, who was thinking about her next internship. At the end of the evening I asked her if she was sold on mobile development. She said yes!! One at a time…
Anyway it was lovely to hang with other women over our shared technical interests. Often these kind of communities seem to arise from within a platform – PyLadies from the Python community, for example. 12K people at GHC this year is a bit overwhelming, but it’s meant that we can go the other way – we can reach out to other women around our shared interests, and build a community.
So I caught up with friends, nerded out about iOS, did a little light mentoring, and then went back to the hotel to experiment with the selfie stick.
I’m at GHC this year because Capital One is hosting me as a blogger! Come by and find me at the booth to say hi if you’re here!