At some point, my doubts about whether it was the Right thing to do, to encourage high school girls to go into Computer Science crystallised, and I accepted – I just cannot do it anymore. I cannot tell them that it is a good idea, that they will be treated well, that there are plentiful […]
I’ve now reviewed a bunch of applications, for a number of different events. I’ve run the sessions that come afterwards deciding on who gets what, and as a result there are some mistakes that I’ve seen over and over again. I’m sure some women get rejected when they have a lot to offer, and part […]
The latest comments are from a guy who runs a startup incubator, but next week it will be someone else. Men, so many men, would like to explain why there are no women in the tech industry, and how it is not, actually, their fault, and there is nothing they can do, so can we […]
I lucked out in being in town when the Women Powering Technology Raspberry Pi event was on, and also in hearing about it – and being allowed in at the last minute! Of course I had heard about the Raspberry Pi, and loved the idea, but I’m pretty intimidated by hardware and cables, so it […]
My overall impression of The Education of Millionaires (Amazon) was a bit meh. It conflates getting an arts degree with a university education in general, and many of the examples come from direct marketing, which seems irrelevant to me. I think the calculations on cost/benefit of degrees could have been vastly improved by discounting science […]
What can men do? Other than not harass women? Although not harassing is a surprisingly good start. TL;DR: Step 1 – Don’t drive women away. Step 2: Don’t stand by and watch other men drive women away. Step 3: Give women a reason to stick around. Step 1: Don’t Perpetuate Understand the range and extent […]
I have a bunch of posts to write up from GHC last week, which was as usual, awesome. But the question I was interested in people I went with answering was – what are you going to do differently when you get back? For me, it was a reminder about the takeaway I got from […]
Amongst other technical women, I’ve observed three broad phases when it comes to their feelings and attitudes with respect to the issues of women in tech. These are my unscientific and generalised observations. Ignorance is Bliss This phase is where women deny that there are any issues facing women in the industry, and sometimes even […]
I found this talk by Kenneth Reitz one of the most interesting at Pycon. There was a comprehensive breakdown of the different strategies people take to create and nurture (or not) open source projects, and tales from maintaining them. You’re probably better to just read Kenneth’s notes, but for what it is worth – here are […]
Interesting talk from the creators of SingPath – games to help people learn to code. Left me wanting to try the game! Some insights about women and what they find off-putting – nothing unexpected. Notes below: Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation: autonomy, mastery, purpose (Dan Pink’s book – Amazon). Want to extrinsically motivate people without killing […]