You can also see these pics on Flickr.
Two recruiting outfits in the area, Jobspring Partners Philadelphia and Workbridge Philadelphia, hosted a fun evening for techies last night. Held at the Quorum Center at 3711 Market St in West Philly, the Tech in Motion speaker series was the first of 2 parts. 5 area women of varying age, experience and backgrounds, gave the audience a quick-view of their career paths in the tech industry. You can check out details and reviews at the Tech in Motion: The Stories of Women in Tech Meetup page.
Speakers:
Some interesting takeaways (for me) from the speakers:
- Most of the five women had some start or connection with the education industry in some manner.
- The ladies discovered tech accidentally in college or learned about it later.
- Business and tech are intertwined and have a lot of things in common, so the jump between coding and project managing isn’t too long.
- None of the ladies even mentioned run-ins with sexism or discrimination against their gender until explicitly asked by an audience member.
- Salary negotiation is a skill women must learn and use. Now.
Some possibilities for growth:
- Have a hashtag. I realize there are Tech in Motion events all over the country, but we tweeters in the audience were at a loss without a hashtag. I suggest #[Event initials][airport code][year] e.g, #TiMPHL13
- A fruit bowl of some sort or something gluten free. My gf friends there and I had nothing to eat.
- A reserved round table at the bar downstairs.
- Ending earlier to encourage more people to join each other at said table at bar downstairs.
- Reading out introductions to the speakers, instead of just saying their names. (You can have the speakers themselves write a two line bio).
All in all, it was a fun night. I had to do a lot of weird family maneuvering to make it, but in the end it worked out. I’m happy the event didn’t start the speakers earlier because I just can’t get downtown by 6 pm most weeknights.
Thanks, JobSpring and Workbridge, especially Nichole Liccio and Melissa Koenig for organizing. Nice to see people-I-only-know-on-Twitter like LeeAnn Kinney and others that are waaaay cooler than me like Lisa Yoder who runs a philly street fashion blog called streetstories.us. Women in Tech conference attendees were present but I also saw a lot of strange faces, which is always a good sign that the Women in Tech community in Philadelphia is growing.
Here’s my Storify of collected pics and tweets from some attendees.
