Women in Tech Speaking Tech
Highly technical women doing amazing things in tech
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I just had the opportunity to speak at a technical conference where all the presenters and attendees were women. I was so honored to participate and hope my presentation on the vulnerabilities I find on penetration tests will help people secure their cloud accounts.
Technical Talks vs. Women in Tech Panels
One of the distinctions of this conference is that women were not on panels discussing how to get more women working in tech. This conference consisted of women giving presentations on technical topics. That is an excellent start down the path to demonstrating that women are working in tech and encouraging others to do the same.
This conference is one more step in the right direction. I hope other events like this around the world will focus on the technical skills women have and the things they contribute to technology rather than pondering what we need to change to get more women in tech.
The people who show up for the women in tech panels are generally the people who already support women in tech. I agreed to speak at precisely one women-in-tech panel. It was at a security conference. I thought I would try it. Not only was the panel scheduled over dinner time, the talk next door was a crypto talk. If I wasn’t on that panel, guess where I would be. Not there, listening to me talk about what to do about woman in tech. I want to learn more about cloud cryptography.
We already have women in tech!
Although a lot of the focus on women in tech is getting women into the field, we already have women working in tech. Instead of talking about how to get more women in tech, show more women giving technical talks. That’s just what this conference did, for the most part.
There are two different objectives to consider in order to advance women in tech. The first is to get more women interested and working in tech. A beginner-level conference can teach other women fundamental skills and help them get started. Show them what is possible. Teach participants technical skills that will help them compete in the job market for top technical roles. Avoid “dumbing it down.” Women are smart and capable of advanced technology. They just need to know how to get started.
Everyone needs 101-level beginner courses at some point. We all need to start somewhere. Talks geared at bringing more women into technology focus on introductory topics and technologies and basic concepts. That type of event is excellent for those who are just starting. It encourages more women to join the field.
What that type of conference does not do is help change the perceptions of women in already working in tech that cause people to choose men over women, or to think that women’s ideas or contributions are somehow inferior to men’s. It will not help keep women in tech. To combat this underlying tendency that undermines women in the field, intentionally or not, we need a different tactic.
To gain respect and reduce bias in the industry, show women doing intermediate to advanced talks. Show that women can be just as technical as their male counterparts. Introductory talks do not help convince people that women in tech are capable and have great technical ideas and research that can change the world.
We need to show what women are accomplishing in tech in ways that move the industry forward by doing amazing research and building new things.
If we want everyone to take women as seriously as men in technology, we need more of are female role models who are making impactful technical contributions and making a difference in tech.
Historic Women in Tech
When you search for women in tech, you will often find historical women in tech. These female pioneers paved the way for some of us working in technology today. To give you an idea, here is a shortlist of women who contributed to the advancement of technology. Many more exist.
Ada Lovelace
Some believe Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician, was possibly the first to realize computers had capabilities beyond mathematics. Some believe she published the first computer algorithm. She also realized that women were technical in their field and worked to expose the work and technical expertise of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson
At a time when most considered women’s skills to be inferior to men, these women who worked at NASA made their way into meetings with men due to their mathematical abilities. They overcame discrimination and racial segregation and helped with things such as calculating rocket trajectories for Mercury and Apollo missions.
You can read their story in this non-fiction book: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, written by Margot Lee Shetterly.
Grace Hopper
Of course, I must mention Grace Hopper. She was one of the pioneers of modern computer science who created some of the modern programming constructs we have today.
A conference for women in technology exists in her name, one which I hope to attend someday in the future in person when these things are possible again.
Joan Clarke
As an English cryptanalyst and numismatist, Joan Clarke is best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. She helped break the German code Enigma, which was the Nazi form of secret communication.
Women Authors of Technical Books, Presentations, and Publications
What about women working in tech today? How can you find more women who are making significant contributions to technology? Perhaps you can read their white papers. Follow them on Twitter. Maybe you can find them at conferences if the organizers invite them to participate and speak on highly technical topics. You may also find their technical books online or in the few bookstores that remain. A female author wrote one of the books I found most helpful when learning to program in Java many years ago.
I found a list of IT books by women below. You can read my book on cybersecurity if the topic interests you.
Many other women and I have written technical white papers. I’ve already mentioned in my blog the white paper I wrote and the presentation I gave at SANS Networking before they had a cloud security class. I talked about automated incident response in the cloud and security automation. I was inspired to write this paper after asking vendors if anyone was doing automated incident response. It seemed like no one was and it was an obvious transition from automated compliance to automatically fixing the problems in my mind. I wrote about packet capture in the cloud before the related services existed. I decided to write this paper after hearing a statement by someone working for one of the largest security organizations in the world that you “can’t do packet capture in the cloud.”
To find women speaking at technical conferences, search for your favorite conference on YouTube and check out the videos. I find the most advanced talks are generally at the major tech conferences. I would like to see more women listed in their line-ups. I understand it may be harder to find women, and it will probably not be 50/50. Still, hopefully, more women can participate, giving technical talks based on their personal research and engineering projects — on the same main stages where men are speaking.
Perhaps a woman out there is able but never considered speaking in public before even though she has an excellent research paper or blog post she can share and discuss. I’ve also seen great women presenters at local technical conferences in my area. Some women may not understand the process of submitting a talk. Some events do not even offer a mechanism for new women who are not already well connected to submit an idea for a presentation.
The contributions of highly technical women are all around us. Promoting and showcasing them will help move the needle in terms of how women can contribute and make a difference in technology. It will help fight unhelpful stereotypes and perceptions. The advanced technical ladies are out there — find them!
Technical Women Inventors, Innovators, Architects, and Researchers
When I search on this topic on google: women research technology or top women in tech, I don’t want to see books about the gender gap. I don’t want to see events for women in tech. I want to get numerous pages full of women researching, developing, and discovering new things in technology! I want to see more articles highlighting amazing women in technology today and their accomplishments, such as this article by Forbes on the Top 50 Women in Tech.
Do you know women working in technology producing new ideas, inventions, original thought, and pushing the boundaries of technology? Promote that!
Women have often been at the forefront of many new ideas in technology. Highly technical women are building complex systems and implementing ground-breaking new ideas right now. They need the opportunity to show the world. We need to hear their stories and see their accomplishments.
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Teri Radichel | © 2nd Sight Lab 2020
About Teri Radichel:
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⭐️ Author: Cybersecurity Books
⭐️ Presentations: Presentations by Teri Radichel
⭐️ Recognition: SANS Award, AWS Security Hero, IANS Faculty
⭐️ Certifications: SANS ~ GSE 240
⭐️ Education: BA Business, Master of Software Engineering, Master of Infosec
⭐️ Company: Penetration Tests, Assessments, Phone Consulting ~ 2nd Sight LabNeed Help With Cybersecurity, Cloud, or Application Security?
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