We need more women in tech: how female communities help personal growths

This blogpost is a guest article written by a participant of the Civic Tech Sisters program.

I believe that networking and women's participation in various business and technical communities is an important and right step towards personal and professional growth.

In the community, every woman can get some support, new knowledge, useful contacts, and job search opportunities. There are several reasons why I believe women should join and take part in meetings, using all the opportunities to interact with other women within the community:

  • Safe and comfortable place. Within the community, every woman can find a safe and comfortable place where she can share her work problems, receive help, and support from other members.
  • Support in the personal and professional issues. Interaction with mentors, community leaders, or members of the community can often help solve important professional or personal problems, give an answer to some unsolved issues or find a different vision.
  • The search for new opportunities. On the websites of many of the world's women's communities, there is a section with job search and volunteer opportunities for women. Moreover, sometimes within the community, you find useful contacts and people who you can turn to when looking for a new job. Women’s communities often become spaces where women can share career advice and create opportunities for each other, together.

How participation in the community helps personal and career growth: my story

My name is Natasha Shevelyova. For the last 4 years, I have actively been engaged in the development of female communities in Ukraine. I am a Women Techmakers Community ambassador, which is supported by Google and is aimed at increasing the number of girls in the tech sphere. Just 3 months ago, I also started developing a business community for women called WTECH in the Ukrainian city Dnipro.

What value did I gain from being a part of a community and why do I advise each girl to take part in different initiatives within various communities:

  • It is a great chance to meet a lot of incredibly interesting people. I’ve met hundreds of intelligent, educated, and talented women from all over the world. I keep in touch with many of them to share information about new work and personal opportunities. Moreover, some of them have become my close friends.

Taking an active part in conferences and meetups, and especially in networking sessions, will help you to widen your network of useful contacts and even make new friends.

  • You can participate in different international conferences. As a member of the Women Techmakers Community, I have visited 5+ conferences all around the world. Visited Google offices in Berlin, Warsaw, and Prague. I have also met people who drive the development of Women Techmakers Communities from the Google side. This is an incredible experience that has allowed me to advance in my personal and career development, to develop my soft and public speaking skills.
  • It is a wonderful opportunity for career growth. Many employers in Ukraine pay attention to your life off work. An active social position, participation in international conferences, public speaking in Ukraine and Europe are indicators that show you are an intelligent and concerned person. Employers always paid attention to that part of my CV where I point out my active involvement in the development of the community.

Every year there are more and more different communities in the world. Below you will find information about the most famous and interesting ones.

Top female tech communities: join these communities and get inspiration for further growth

https://www.womentechmakers.com/

Women Techmakers

Women Techmakers is a Google program that provides visibility, community, and resources for women in technology. Their mission is reflected in the main message of the community sent to everyone. And this message is the following “We’re building a world where all women can thrive in tech”.

At the moment, there are more than 325 Women Techmakers subcommunities in the world and more than 70 thousand active members. The possibility of participating in the work of the local communities all over the world is the biggest advantage of the whole community. The complete list of the subcommunities is given here.

https://www.adaslist.co/

Ada’s List

Ada’s List is a place for each woman who works on or around the internet (in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics). It is the place where every woman gets some support, a possibility to talk about professional issues, meet other talented women, and find more motivation for further professional and personal growth.

The community was founded in 2013 and now it has more than 7.5 thousand members. Nowadays, Ada’s List is the “largest email community of women in tech”.

https://anitab.org

AnitaB.org

It is one of the oldest communities which was founded by Anita Borg in 1987 for the women in the computer industry.

The community is aimed at helping and inspiring women engineers worldwide. AnitaB programs help women grow, learn, and develop their potential.

The community’s leaders clearly understand the needs of women and work as C-level managers in leading technology organizations.

https://www.womenwhocode.com/

Women Who Code

Women Who Code is an organization that has a vision that is similar to that of Google’s Women Techmakers community. They strive to see a society in which the same numbers of men and women take leadership positions and work as managers, founders, venture capitalists, members of the board team, and engineers.

The community is working in order to reach 4 main goals:

  • They help women develop the professional skills required for their career growth;
  • They provide teaching programs on how to hire talented women;
  • They are building the community that values network and mentoring;
  • They develop role models and support female engineers.

The community is known to have more than 230 thousand participants now. You can get registered in a few clicks, choose a chapter, and see the opportunities (for example, become a volunteer, a community leader, find a job, share your code or review the code).

https://girlsintech.org/

Girls in Tech

The community has more than 60,000 members in more than 50 chapters around the world.

Girls in Tech puts forward an interesting and inspiring idea which is the following: there is a strong, smart, and frank girl inside each of us, and this girl should be heard in society.

One of their goals is to have more inclusive technical specialists in the world. They strive for each person to be perceived, appreciated, and trusted. That is why the mission of the community "Tech Needs You. Just As You Are."

https://www.ladiesthatux.com/

LadiesThatUX

It is a community for female designers who support each other and work on innovations in UX.

The community has chapters in different cities of America, Europe, and Asia, where various events, such as formal and informal meetings on the subjects of UX and UI design, are held. The policy of the community is to keep a relaxing atmosphere in which you can easily find the girl who is able to help you solve your UX-problem.

http://www.sheplusplus.com/

She++

She ++ is a non-profit organization, members of which do their best to dispel the misjudgment that programming and computer sciences are not for girls.

The difference between SHE ++ program and other programs is that they are mainly interested in the development of the skills of high school female students. The scholarships given by them to high school students can be spent on holding hackathons and meetups, as well as on creating subcommunities.

There is also a college ambassadors program, which is aimed at respecting diversity and improving the quality of education in the field of computer sciences.

In conclusion, if you want to surround yourself with as smart and interesting ladies as you are, you have to pay attention to the women communities in your city or country. Good luck!

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