Ada Lovelace Day is a day of celebration of women in STEM, their contributions and encouraging young women to join us in STEM jobs.
This year I was invited to speak at an event at my university for Glasgow Uni SWiTCH (women in tech group for students). My first thought was “Oh cool! I wish this group existed when I was at uni!”,then “Me? Are you sure?”, then on to “What am I going to say?!”
I thought was that I was in their situation about 8 years ago, what would I like to have heard? I decided to think of lessons I would give to me back then… So my talk was titled “Lessons to my younger (developer) self”.
The event was great, as someone who organises meetups I know how hard it can be, so I was so impressed by the students who organised the event. The format was: a clip of a movie discussing the challenges of women in technology, a short talk from all 4 guests speakers then a panel where the students could ask us questions.
It was lovely to hear the stories of the other speakers from Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg and Obashi, it’s always interesting hearing similarities in my own journey with other people in tech even though we work for very different companies. I really liked that we were just discussing our career, how we have progressed and what we do in tech, rather than focusing on the issues. It really was a celebration of women in tech roles.
Big well done to the organisers! It was lovely to meet everyone, I look forward to seeing what my fellow Glasgow Uni graduates will get up to when they join us in industry.
As always, if you have any feedback or want to say hello, you will find me on twitter.