Sebastopol, CA--There's no doubt that women coders, developers, designers, and programmers are a powerful force in the modern tech industry, despite their smaller numbers compared to men. At the same time many of the major impacts and innovations of women at every level of the development and evolution of technology--from the first female coders to today's Web 2.0 pioneers--aren't all that well known.
But starting now, O'Reilly Media aims to celebrate and give voice to the real-world experiences and concerns of these female trailblazers by publishing a new online series, "Women in Tech." The brainchild of Tatiana Apandi, an associate editor at O'Reilly, the series features articles solicited from technology's female side--and all focused on what it's like to carve out a career in technology.
The timely new series reveals the challenges, rewards, and, sometimes, frustrations of being a woman in an industry still dominated by men. "Each day, we'll present a different woman's story that I believe will open readers' eyes to her unique perspective," explains Apandi. "We have contributions from conference organizers, authors, programmers, developers, and more--women who have pioneered prosperous careers in technology."
"As the series progresses, I hope readers find that this myriad of female perspectives shows how valuable it is to hear different points of view," says Tatiana. "Whether readers think there are issues on which we need to work or that there are no issues at all, one underlying truth is that we need to support each other as individuals and help one another with our separate goals."
With clarity, honesty, and wit, this collection reveals what it's like to be in the minority of the male-dominated geek culture. Here are just a few of the voices in this upcoming series:
- Anna Martelli, Ravenscroft, Pythonista
- Audrey Eschright, independent programmer/designer/publisher
- CJ Rayhill, SVP of Product Management and Technology for Safari Books Online
- Dawn Foster, Director of Developer Relations at Jive Software
- Dru Lavigne, Chair of the BSD Certification Group Inc
- Gabrielle Roth, member of the Portland Perl Mongers
- Jeni Tennison, independent consultant and author
- Jill Dyche, partner and co-founder of Baseline Consulting
- Juliet Kemp, Systems Administrator for the Astrophysics group at Imperial College
- Julia Lerman, Board member of the Vermont Software Developer Alliance, runs the Vermont.NET User Group
- Kaliya Hamlin, Identity Woman and an organizer of She's Geeky Unconference.
- Kirsten Jones, webmaster for The Perl Foundation
- Lauren Wood, Chaired for the W3C DOM Working Group
- Leslie Hawthorn, works for Open Source Programs Office at Google
- Selena Deckelmann, leads PDXPUG, a PostgreSQL Users Group
- Shelley Powers, software developer/architect, photographer, and author
The "Women in Tech," series starts Sept 4. Find out what they have to
share and join the discussion here:
http://www.oreillynet.com/womenintech/
About O’Reilly
O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.