Advancing Women in Product (AWIP) and Python Software Foundation (PSF) PyCon co-present: A showcase of European startups

Credits: Katherine Sammes (AWIP EMEA Growth Lead), AWIP Team and Don Sheu (founder, PyCascades)

Preface: Advancing Women in Product (AWIP) is an international 501(c)(3) NGO that is dedicated to empowering more women to become the next generation of tech leaders and trailblazers. With over 4,000 members distributed globally, AWIP runs chapters from its HQ in SF, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Paris. With this event, AWIP is also actively looking to expand its reach to London and the UK. The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing and promoting the Python language, and is one of the world’s largest software non-profit organizations. For this event, AWIP and PSF teamed together to reach even more tech entrepreneurs and to bridge the gap for female founders.

On the 13th of December, AWIP held its first London-based event; a collaboration with PSF PyCon Startup Row. The event was hosted by Nexmo at their offices in Shoreditch. Don Sheu, a founder of PyCascades, represented PSF and provided a pair of registrations and a free sponsor booth at PyCon 2019 to the winner of a pitch event for Python startups. The event follows the launch of the first AWIP international chapter in Paris back in October (co-hosted with DocuSign and Pink Innov, a community of French women business leaders), and opens up the stage for AWIP’s growing efforts in London in 2019.

Katherine Sammes, AWIP’s EMEA Growth Program Lead interviewed Anna Pagan, a product manager at Made by Many about her route into product management and what her day to day role looks like. This was a useful introduction to the role for the women in the audience who have not yet broken in to product management, and Anna invited audience members who were interested to apply for Made by Many’s open Junior Product Manager role. If you are interested in applying, follow this link to apply and mention AWIP and Anna Pagan in your application.

Anna’s tips for breaking into product management were:

• There’s no ‘typical’ route into becoming a product manager, so pick out the bits of your experience that are relevant to the role you are applying to
• A lot of the role involves communicating between engineering teams and customers, so highlight your ability to understand and share information
• You will learn much of what you need to know on the job, so being a fast learner helps; don’t be afraid to ask questions

The event also featured a presentation from Jaron Collis, one of the founders of Plural AI, talking about how he and his co-founder Camille Rougie met on Entrepreneur First’s accelerator program and in a year built a startup using Python that raised £1M. Jaron talked about how to ideate based on your skills and passion, and how having a shared passion enabled two strangers to meet and build a lasting business.

The final part of the evening was a pitch event, where startups had 5 minutes each to earn the chance to go to PSF’s PyCon next year in Cleveland, US. The conference runs from May 1–9, with the first two days dedicated to tutorials, the next three days for talks and events and the final four days for developer sprints on open-source projects. The three startups pitching were:

• Heterogeneous connects individuals directly to researchers, allowing consumers to own all of their own data while allowing researchers to glean insights from consumer behavior patterns.
• Teebly is the smart communications platform that makes all professional interactions effortless and secure using bank-grade encryption of all messages and documents, enabling their customers to be GDPR compliant.
• DotScience provides solutions for machine learning model management both for data science teams and for financial organisations, including tools for compliance and governance, and version control for development through a sophisticated dashboard.

Teebly won the popular vote, and will be attending PyCon next year.

AWIP is looking forward to the new year — keep your eyes open for upcoming events and the London launch in 2019! If you’d like to be a part of our London chapter to plan more events like this, please reach out to info@advancingwomeninproduct.org and Katherine at katherine@advancingwomeninproduct.org. We’d love to reach more women and male advocates in the London/UK area with your help! Together, we will make a difference.

Please visit our website: www.advancingwomeninproduct.org or Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/awipInfo/ for more information and to sign up to the mailing list.

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