Women in technology meetup

Increasing the percentage of women involved in the technology field, and in open source projects specifically, is an on-going challenge. While changing the environment in technology organizations is necessary and important, it is also important to support women, as an underrepresented group, in finding solidarity with each other.

Audience

Women (and optionally allies) involved in technology, or interested in getting involved in technology.

Each meetup group should decide for itself whether the group should open only to women, or to anyone supportive of the goals of the group.

This is a broad category of meetups, so the audience of any particular meetup group might be more narrow, for example, by focusing on a specific technology.

Purpose

Provide a safe space to support women involved in technology, through:

• learning about technologies
• addressing the challenges facing women in technology
• learning about career development issues, such as mentorship, interviewing and negotiating, communication skills, self-presentation
• building community among women involved in technology (and optionally allies)

Note that a strong, meaningful code of conduct is important for the goal of creating a safe space.

Resources

There are a number of networks of groups supporting women in technology. It may make sense to connect to one of these networks, rather than creating an independent group. This can give your meetup some name-recognition and instant credibility. (Note that some groups have "girl" in their name, but actually focus on adult women.)

• Women Who Code: Global network dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers.
• Girl Develop It: US-based organization, makes open-licensed course materials available online.
• PyLadies: Women who use Python.
• Girls in Tech: Global organization focused on technology, education, empowerment, and entrepreneurship.
• GirlGeeks: Online community for women in computing.
• WoMoz: Women and Mozilla project.

• Q&A session on running "Women in Tech" meetups, recording and notes