Friday 23 November 2012

Thursday Club: The Girls Hacking Club present a 'women in technology' panel.

On Thursday 22nd November I was invited to speak and be part of a panel of experts at by the Girls Hacking Club, part of Goldsmiths' Thursday Club.

The Thursday Club is an open forum for anyone interested in the theories and practices of technologies and state-of-the-art culture.

I was very excited to be invited to be part of a 'women in technology' panel discussing various projects developed to empower women in the IT industry. The panel included a stunning line up of fantastic projects in the UK:

Nela Brown is a sound artist/ technologist and researcher. She is currently doing her PhD at Queen Mary, University of London where she is also a Chair of G.Hack and WISE@QMUL. G.Hack is a collective of female researchers at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science focusing on sharing knowledge and developing interactive media projects through collaboration with other universities, art organizations and industry partners. In 2011 G.Hack received funding from QMUL which kick-started a series of public engagement activities. 
http://nelabrown.blogspot.co.uk http://ghack.eecs.qmul.ac.uk 

Pollie Barden is a visual artist, game designer, web designer and technophile. She earned an M.S.P. from the Interactive Telecommunication Program at New York University and is currently doing her PhD in Media Arts and Technology at Queen Mary, University of London where she is also a member of G.Hack and in charge of co-ordinating departmental qMedia Hack Days. 
http://pabadesigns.com 

Anna-Maria Spehar-Deleze and Salzitsa Anastasova-Ivanova are postdoctoral researchers at the School of Engineering and Material Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London and members of the WISE@QMUL committee. WISE@QMUL (The Women in Science and Engineering Society) was set up in 2008 as an informal group for discussion and networking amongst QMUL students interested in the role of female participation in science. The society currently has 130 members spread across the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and welcomes men as well as women from undergraduate level to professors. In 2012 the society received substantial funding from QMUL, which enabled them to organize seminars, talks, workshops and socials in 2012 and will ensure sustainable growth in years to come. 
http://wiseqmul.wordpress.com 

Paula Graham is a director of Fossbox; a non-profit offering consultancy on collaborative working, peer support and peer training and co-founder of Flossie; a collective of women from digital and arts organisations sharing a common commitment to celebrating and enabling women’s contribution to FLOSS culture. The first Flossie conference was held in May 2012 at Queen Mary University of London and was followed by a 3 day ‘Career Taster’ in October 2012 at The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park. 
www.fossbox.org.uk www.flossie.org 

Heidi Harman is a serial entrepreneur, mentor and speaker and also co-founder of Geek Girl Meetup. She is currently working on her new startup in the mobile finance sector. 
www.geekgirlmeetup.com

Carrie Anne Philbin (yours truly) is a KS3 ICT Subject Leader & Google Certified Teacher at Robert Clack School in Dagenham. She is a Creator of the Geek Gurl Diaries, a youtube video series designed to inspire more teenage girls to take up STEM and Computing subjects. 
www.geekgurldiaries.co.uk @geekgurldiaries 

I was excited to network with these projects to hopefully collaborate with in the future. I'm excited to find female role models in STEM subjects who would be willing to do interviews and perhaps help me run workshops. If you love technology I would recommend getting involved with any if not all of the projects and groups listed above.

Friday 2 November 2012

Talk Talk Digital Heroes Award 2012

I'm very excited to announce that Carrie Anne Philbin of Geek Gurl Diaries has been nominated for a Digital Heroes Award by Talk Talk and is on of three fantastic finalists in the London region.


She needs your votes! So please vote and tweet about it to your friends: