Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day dedicated to celebrating women in technology.
This day, the second Tuesday of every October, was founded to mark the achievements of all women in the STEM industry, but in particular to acknowledge women in computer programming roles – in memory of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer. It is therefore an important day in Swarm’s calendar – we like to take the chance to celebrate the women working here at Swarm as well as across the industry.
Since Swarm started in 2011, we have been really keen to encourage more women into the tech industry. We do this by getting involved with all sorts of events throughout each year that aim to achieve this. Ada Lovelace day this year falls at an exciting time for the team at Swarm as we have been involved recently with two of the leading organisations promoting women in technology. One of the key organisations that we love to partner with for various events throughout the year is Stemettes – which was ‘set up to inspire the next generation of females into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) fields by showing them the amazing women already in STEM via a series of panel events, hackathons, exhibitions, and mentoring schemes.’
About 2 weeks ago we were lucky enough to be able to take part in one of the Stemettes’ leading events of the year called “AlGirlRhythm“. Eva one of our Engineering Leads, @evaluckhiram, with the help of some of the other Swarmers ran an app building workshop that took place all day during the #AlGirlRhythm event. It was a great opportunity to help inspire a group of young women (ages 16-24) with mostly little to no coding experience and give them a taster of what it’s like to be a software developer. By the end of the session most of the girls had built their very own app!
The workshop feedback we received from the girls was fantastic. The Stemettes organisers invited Eva up on stage to join a panel session and pass on her words of wisdom to the audience about getting into technology and becoming a successful software developer.
Just 2 weeks later, here we are on Ada Lovelace day with Scotland’s biggest Women in Tech event kicking off in Glasgow tomorrow!
We are delighted to be sponsoring one of the biggest conferences in the industry and can’t wait to meet lots of successful women to hear about their journeys in technology. This event is part of the Women in Tech World Series – which is the the world’s largest event series dedicated to women in tech. There is a fantastic agenda of talks and discussions lined up from inspirational women representing companies such as Skyscanner, RBS and Sky.
We will be exhibiting in the main networking area – so if you’re going along, make sure to come and say hi! We will also be running a competition tomorrow which will launch at 8am (event opening time) and close around 4.30 (in time for the winner to be announced at the close of the conference). More details to come via the SwarmOnline twitter channel tomorrow – but there is an HP Sprocket up for grabs!
We love getting involved with these events that inspire and encourage women into the tech industry. Here at Swarm, our team is rapidly expanding and we are excited as more and more women are becoming software developers. We welcome you to come and work at Swarm!
Happy Ada Lovelace Day to all the women in technology!
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