I started BCSWomen – the UK’s first online network for #WomenInTech – back in 1998 after experiencing something similar to these women when attending academic computer science conferences as a PhD student.
I had been to a few conferences by 1998 and had a few uncomfortable experiences including constantly being stared at by a keynote speaker after I chatted to him about my research. I thought I’d said something which he wasn’t happy about and that’s why he was staring at me all the time. Ah…my naivety. It was only a few years later that I realised that I hadn’t said anything wrong at all.
After a few uncomfortable experiences at academic computer science conferences I then went to an #EuropeanCommission #WomenInScience conference in Brussels where I met the most amazing women including Aliza Sherman and Natasha Loder, had an utterly life changing time. I walked in thinking I was useless at networking and didn’t enjoy conferences, within hours, or maybe minutes I met the most incredible women there who were so inspiring, changing the world, and amazingly actually wanted to talk to me and encourage me in what I was doing. It was an absolute life changing revelation!
It helped me to realise something basic, and obvious once I thought about it: if you are in the majority life is just easier.
I had such an amazing time being in the majority at that conference, so much so that I came back to the UK and started #London BCSWomen which in 2001 grew – by popular demand – into BCSWomen. I reasoned that If I felt like that at conferences, surely some other women felt the same way? It turned out that they did, in their hundreds š
Reading this article brought these memories back for me.
What are your thoughts? Comments?
Will things ever change?
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