Women in the field of technology.
Jessica Redrado, K-LAGAN consultant, explains the initiative.
A couple of years ago, I became interested in technological events and began to attend those in my city and also travel so I could attend some more since in Zaragoza there aren’t many.
Thanks to this, I began to meet more people who were also interested in these types of events and began to expand my vision and become more aware and concerned about the low female presence in this area and in the field of technology in general.
Luckily, I met 9 extraordinary women who were interested and concerned about the same thing as me, and so, we proposed to create an event that we ourselves would like to attend where the main objective would be to make the role of women in technology visible and promote their participation in technology and serve as a reference and inspiration to younger women.
With all of this in mind, we created Mulleres Tech, a non-profit community created to provide visibility to women who are dedicated to technology in Aragon in a professional or amateur way and to promote references for younger women who are more than capable to work in the technology sector, to promote relations between women in the field of technology, to make technology professionals visible and give them a voice and experiences, to train girls and boys in technological subjects through workshops, to make an event in which we feel comfortable and that is safe and to continue with the visibility work before and after the event by giving talks and attending meetings.
On October 20th, 2018 we celebrated the second edition of Women Techmakers Zaragoza.
Women Techmakers events are an initiative promoted by Google to give visibility to women and encourage their participation in the field of technology, a sector in which women have historically been little present but which is beginning to change its gender distribution thanks to initiatives like this. Women Techmakers wants to create a community with visibility, generating resources that promote innovation and the participation of women in this sector. These events are designed to promote the inclusion of women in technology.
Events like this have been celebrated in other Spanish cities – with great success – such as Madrid, Malaga, Barcelona, Valencia, Menorca, Salamanca or Logroño, and Zaragoza could not be less.
The first year in the 2017 edition celebrated on November 11, without knowing each other at all and without having practically any experience in organizing events, we managed to organize an event that was an incredible success, we managed, in a few months, location, sponsors, high level speakers (more than 90 proposals for talks) and 250 attendees, in other words, the event we had dreamed of based on values and respect for all audiences but with a high female presence (70% of attendees were women).
It took us some time to coordinate and learn, but both the relations of the organizers internally and with the speakers and participants were agile and fluid, and we acquired a series of lessons and skills that are very useful in our work area and of use for the organization of the next edition.
And best of all, the post-Women Techmakers effect: organizing periodic events, more women attending events, more women speakers, more women getting involved in communities (Technovation Challenge, Cachirulo Valley and Codemotion where we received a community award) and more women being referents for new generations.
In the 2018 edition, once again we have beaten the 90 talk proposals, we have sponsors from last year and new companies and entities that have collaborated with us and we have also had many high-level speakers.
These are some numbers from 2018:
- 42 girls and boys in children’s workshops,
- 35 women speakers
- 4 mentors
- 94 proposals for talks
- 30 sponsors and collaborators: Telefónica, Zara, Google, Adidas or Elastic
- 10 media echoed our event: Heraldo de Aragón, Aragón Televisión, El periódico de Aragón, Aragón Radio, ABC.es, Que.es, etc.
- More than 1000 followers on Twitter
- Photo album of the 2018 edition
We will continue working to make this event possible and that more and more people come and we have more interesting talks.
I hope to see many k-laganers in the 2019 edition!
Written by Jessica Redrado
