The large crowd at Dublin’s Convention Centre last week for the Women in Tech event, was not exclusively female, but they were all fans of inclusion and innovative technology. Attendees came to network, learn and discover the very latest insights and ideas presented by exciting speakers from all areas of technology. Well-known TV and radio personality, Ruth Scott, compered the event, which was aimed at bringing women in tech together, and she bought that very relatable touch she has become known for.

Women In Tech, Dublin 2019, reviewed

There were many great speakers over the two days but the one that stood out most for me was legendary game designer (with built-in New York attitude), Brenda Romero, whose talk was called The Lost History of Women in Computing. Brenda introduced some of the women who built the tech revolution and referred to this hidden history as the ‘commenting out’ of women, cleverly written in coding language as, ” //women “. She informed us that even well into the 1970s, computer programming was termed “girl hours”.

When coding’s importance grew, so too did the pay-scale along with male interest in those roles once deemed menial and unskilled. She then turned her focus to current statistics, sharing that while women make up 59% of the Silicon Valley workforce, only 20% are tech workers. Another shocking statistic came from a 2017 GitHub report showing that women’s contributions were rated higher and more frequently accepted than those of men.., UNLESS their gender was known in which case it dropped by 20%.

Brenda Romero urged us to dispel myths and clear away barriers to achieving equal parity because we are so much more than our gender, race, sexuality or culture and our work needs to be appreciated. It was no surprise that at the end of this brilliant and humorous presentation, the audience leapt to their collective feet to give her a well-deserved standing ovation.

Some More Stand-Out Speakers

Deepa Mann-Kler is the CEO of immersive technology healthcare company Neon. She presented BreatheVR, a tool to manage anxiety and pain management without medication. Her idea of using Virtual Reality to treat pain was inspired by visiting Björk Digital. BreatheVR has been effectively used for fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions and Deepa reports indications that pain is relieved by half. This is a very exciting innovation and Neon have been lending out VR headsets and gathering pain diaries for further research.

Walking the talk as both a NASA Datanaut and our first ethnically diverse Miss Universe Ireland, Fionghuala O’Reilly took to the stage, asking us to move on from gender equality and widen the focus when it comes to diversity and inclusion (D+I). There’s so much intersectionality to encompass such as age, race, culture and disability. D+I as a core value from top-level can breed innovation and increase profit as businesses begin to resemble their diverse customers. One of her many excellent points was that non-intersectional D+I initiatives tell other subsets to wait their turn.

Although there was no mention of the ‘B’ word (Brexit), Jennifer O’Sullivan, Deputy Commissioner at the Data Protection Commission talked about that other ubiquitous topic, GDPR. She reported that the Commission will concentrate on the specific protection of children in safeguarding their personal data, and to this end, they’ve carried out extensive research in schools. She also shared that following a massive increase in complaints and concerns from the public, the Commission advocates a risk-based approach to data protection and will invest efforts in a program of voluntary GDPR certification.

Sarah Cunningham of MasterCard pointed out that over the years, unconscious bias and traditional gender roles meant that boys were often gifted technological items such as computer game consoles in place of the dolls and kitchenware that were marketed to girls. This meant that going into the workforce a generation of women were already ten years behind men when it came to coding and computer experience.

Aisling Curtis of Microsoft Ireland questioned how workers are supported in a digital culture. Some statistics she brought up were that only 16% of employees think they’re in a strong digital culture and only 14% feel engaged with 93% experiencing low productivity. She suggested that the current culture of being continuously ‘ON’ means continuous distraction.

According to Aisling, lack of support and training leads to “Techno Stress” causing the distracted workforce to feel disengaged and left behind. She urged Irish business to address this through measures such as remote working, judging the impact on families and striving for better inclusivity and accessibility.

Jennifer Cox of Tenable spoke about getting the work:life balance right. In her entertaining presentation, she advocated locking in some time your calendar for family, saying that a failure to do so, along with associated guilt, will result in decreased productivity.

“In order to give yourself value, you need to give yourself time.”

Apart from the Speakers

There were also several workshops available and I was delighted to take part in the Code Institutes mini hackathon, a skills lab in coding. I cheated a little bit as I already have coding experience, but I was particularly impressed by how quickly groups with no coding skills were able to put hard-coded webpages together.

Lunchtimes were equally interesting with open tables and an inspired delegation leading to an array of interesting and diverse topics being consumed alongside the deliciously healthy food. Lunch took place in the main hall amid the many fantastic exhibitors.

Women in Tech was a truly inspiring and informative event and it’s not surprising that it attracted such a large crowd of attendees – I would imagine that tickets will be even more sought-after next year! The final keynote speaker, Kendal Parmar of Untapped AI, sent us on our way with a massive ROAR and I left feeling galvanised and excited for the future.

See more by Barbara here.

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