Women in Tech
Ok, I am going to come right out and say it: women and men are not equal. On average, men tend to be physically stronger than women. We also tend to have more rods in our eyes, so we are able to see better at night. Women, on the other-hand, tend to have more cones in their eyes, so they often are able to discern colors better than men. They also tend to have a higher tolerance for pain.
Men and women also tend to think a bit differently. Women are typically better at keeping many things in their mind at once and are therefore better at seeing the bigger picture, whereas men tend to be more highly focused.
So we’re different. We look different. We smell different. Ok. That doesn’t make one gender better.
Now that that is out of the way, let’s look at women in tech.
For generations, men have been pushed towards science, math, technology, and engineering. Women have not. This has created a gender gap in STEM so wide that when a friend of mine was completing a Ph.D. in engineering, she was repeatedly told she didn’t belong. After that Ph.D. she got another in Science. Bad-ass, I know. Do we call her “Dr. Dr. Starkweather” now?
Despite some strides in recent years, young girls are still not being pushed towards STEM as hard as they should. STEM is awesome. And women completely crush it.
Easily the smartest (and funniest) person I’ve met in my entire life has a Ph.D. in Mathematics. Oh, and she’s a woman.
When I worked at the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University, while her husband Lonnie Thompson got most of the press and attention, Ellen Mosley-Thompson was clearly the brains behind their dynamic duo. It was an odd dynamic. Everyone that knew them saw this, yet Time Magazine never named HER person of the year. Ted Turner didn’t open a bank account with Jurassic-Park-level money to fund HER expeditions. Yet among her colleagues, when she walked into a crowded lecture hall, everyone immediately fell silent.
In the South Florida Tech scene, women are still greatly outnumbered, but their contributions are quite clear.
At the forefront, there is Nikki Cabus, who isn’t even an engineer, yet I can’t think of a single person in tech in South Florida that wouldn’t drop everything to answer her call. She is brilliant and is also a powerful driving force in our tech landscape.
Shana Ostrovitz might not like the be lumped in with “tech”, but she is a huge part of our startup and entrepreneur ecosystem here in South Florida. The accelerator and co-working space that Shana helps run, 1909, is a central hub for hundreds of small companies, from creative individuals to rapidly-growing tech startups. I’m not suggesting that it’s all her doing, but I just want to point out that Florida wasn’t ranked #1 on the Kauffman index until after Shana kicked 1909 into gear. Literally hundreds of entrepreneurs look to her for mentorship, even well beyond the membership of 1909.
It’s hard to imagine that just 6 months ago, Rebecca Bakels was working as a manager at a retail store in the mall. In the months since she left that post, she’s taken nearly every class Boca Code has (and crushed them all), participated in every hackathon (and crushed them all), was hired to help grow several startups and write for Tech Hub South Florida, and is now in talks with multiple tech companies that all want to hire her as a software engineer. Tomorrow, she’s giving a talk about this amazing journey for Queer JS, a massive tech group. So, back in September, she wasn’t in tech. Now she’s a leader. Yeah, don’t get in her way.
Then we have Beth Wagmeister. Beth is a leader across many fields in education and advocacy for inclusivity and accessibility. Many business owners don’t know what to do to become more accessible and inclusive. That’s where Beth comes in. She can help provide a clear path forward, and while she’s intensely passionate about it, her approach is a gentle one.
And there are so many others. In fact, our community is brimming with some of the most talented and incredible women you could ever meet. I literally just chose the few I wrote about because I had this photo of them all handy. And they’re some of my absolute favorites.
But their stories aren’t the only ones. And won’t be the last. More and more women are joining tech every day and I couldn’t be happier about it. Since men and women think a little differently, we make great pairs when it comes to programming, often seeing angles the other might not. So I strongly encourage you to hire more women for your team.
And one other woman to give a quick shout-out to – my wife. She’s the one that suggested that as Women’s History month draws to a close, I dedicate 500 words to Women in Tech. I hope I did you all some justice.
