Name of meet up: Women in Tech Belfast (Lean In)
Name of meet up organisers: Victoria McCallum, with Claire Nixon, Claire Wilgar, Lisa Donaldson, Siobhan Gallagher, Sarah Rudek, Lauren Foster.
How would you describe your meet up and how often does it meet?
Women make up 20% of IT professional roles in NI, the highest of any region in the UK. It’s not too much to ask for 20% of speakers and attendees at events to be women? Realising that for some events has been difficult, especially finding willing speakers, our WITB workshops this year are geared towards addressing the gap, equipping women with the skills they need to give technical talks, and then the skills they need to advance their careers.
Responding to a survey of our members, all eight planned events for 2018 are in the evening, but we know this is inconvenient for some people. As a compromise, we have fixed the dates in advance – check out our meetup page to see what’s planned for the third Tuesday of the month https://www.meetup.com/Women-In-Tech-Belfast-Lean-In/events/– to give people time to make arrangements. And we’re delighted that through our partnership with Secure Broadcast, all the workshops will be recorded and available on YouTube so anyone who can’t attend in person doesn’t totally miss out.
We may also run some additional events to encourage discussion within the tech community about how to make it more inviting for everyone. And we’d like to throw in some social events and set up a mentoring scheme.
How has your meet up changed from its initial conception?
When WITB started in 2017, it was pretty much just a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/WomenInTechBelfast/ with monthly ‘socials’ as a way of getting to meet more women in the industry. Those conversations, together with collaboration with other groups to help source more diverse speakers and attendees, led to the creation of the more formal programme for 2018 to try and help solve the problems identified by members.
Has your meet up spawned new ventures, products or networks?
It’s early days for WITB. But we know that because of the supportive atmosphere of the group, a number of women have felt confident to take the step to apply for more senior positions than they would have previously considered and I’m pleased to say they have been successful!
Have you collaborated with other groups?
We keep in touch with other women-led community meetups in Belfast to avoid duplication and cross-promote events to each other’s networks. We’ve worked with Belfast JS and the NI Developer Conference to help diversify their speaker line-up and attendance, and we’d love to support and collaborate with other local meetup and conference organisers to ensure all events represent the people in the industry.
What was the motivation behind starting the meetup, and how did you go about setting it up?
We wanted more women to get involved in the tech community to aid their career progression. We also wanted to provide more visible peers and role models to inspire more women to join the industry. It began with open and public discussions about the gender disparity in the industry as a prelude to fixing it. There are a lot of private conversations happening amongst women, but people are perhaps understandably reluctant to speak out. But if the industry and individuals within certain companies don’t know what is wrong, then how can they change and improve? The group is here to safely facilitate those discussions.
While it might seem counterproductive to set up a separate gendered group, from experience, more women attend women’s events (especially if they feel they’re at the edges of the community). Ultimately they’ll join the community, feel comfortable and equipped with the skills and networks they need to transfer into the wider non-gendered community groups, and be so successful that we cease to exist because all tech events, like the industry itself, are a neutral space!
What would your advice be to someone about to join their first meetup?
Come along! For a bunch of stereotypically socially-inept super-nerds, the tech community is actually an awful lot of craic. (Why the former is the persistent stereotype, I don’t know!) One of the industry’s great strengths is its varied, friendly, helpful, caring professional community.
What would be your advice to someone who is looking to start a meetup?
Be willing to figure it out as you go along. And don’t be afraid to ask for help: plenty of people will be willing to give advice and support you.
