Community Leader’s Celebration #IWD18
The biggest advantage in trying to make an impact in the domain of women in technology, unfortunately, is that there isn’t substantial competition. It’s been almost a year since I’ve started working with some amazing women from various communities to build an ecosystem; a network to support & encourage fellow women in technology to leave this world a better place then we came. This March, we decided to pause for a while in order to celebrate our achievements as we looked to deepen and strengthen our collaboration in the year 2018. And there couldn’t have been a better way of celebrating it than the way we did- a potluck, as everyone pitched in, contributing something unique and special to the group.
After the much awaited, warm-hearted conversations of the gathering that we had been planning for months, we moved on to sharing as we assumed it to be a fit beginning. On sharing our own individual stories, we got to connecting with each other on a much more personal level. Just like the food, we all shared our programs and aspirations in the field of women in technology, bringing in diverse perspectives to the table keeping in mind the common goal of empowering and supporting more women in the field.
As we had representatives from AnitaB.org India, Women Who Code, Lean In Women in Tech India, Hexagon UX Bangalore, ACM, GDG and Women Techmakers, our discussions and debates lead on to why women feel more safe in women only events. We also dwelled on why women missed out on events such as hackathons purely because of security reasons. We paid keen attention to working towards changing mindsets of these women for good and making events more inclusive. We want women being an integral part of gender neutral events and take small steps in changing their conditioning of feeling less confident in such events. The discussions were from personal experiences and were straight from the heart. We also brainstormed about importance of male allies and how critical they are in encouraging their peers to see a better gender parity in the tech industry.
On a lighter note, this gathering allowed us to connect on personal levels to mentor and sponsor our fellow leads and help each other learn and grow in this ecosystem. Personally, I strive to be instrumental in working with corporates in strengthening connects and having an increased number of senior women enjoy the benefits of being influential as their networks broaden. We also pledged to tap into our local networks to connect to transport providers to ensure that transportation and security are not a hindrance to women to attend events in the future.
It’s safe to say that the message that was propagated as well as received loud and clear at the end of the day was that we strongly believe in ‘Collaboration over Competition’ and ‘We are each other’s strengths’! A hearty thanks to the wonderful women from these various communities for making it and for sharing thoughts and food through the day.
