In October of 2007 I left my software industry job and went immediately to two back-to-back conferences for technical women. The first was the fabulous Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), presented by the nonprofit Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI). The second was a fiesty little unconference for technical women organized by Kaliya Hamlin, also known as Identity Woman. I had a fabulous time at both of these very different events and got to know many very smart, accomplished, interesting and, yes, geeky (and I mean that in a good way!) women. I now work at ABI and get to help produce GHC, and I'm totally looking forward to this fall's conference in Tuscon, AZ, Sept 30-Oct 3. But that's months away, so I'm glad that She's Geeky is returning to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on January 30-31.
If you're scratching your head and wondering what an unconference is, it's a facilitated, participant-driven event. The attendees put together the agenda at the unconference itself, based on their interests, expertise and needs around the event theme. It's a popular format for technical conferences in the Open Source, Linux and Web 2.0 spaces. I've been to a few now and found them to be fun and productive networking and learning experiences.
As with any other technical conference, at technical unconferences women often find themselves in the minority. Enter Kaliya Hamlin, an experienced unconference organizer and facilitator, and the She's Geeky, the technical unconference for women who self-identify as geeks. She and her friends have created an event for women with a wide range of interest or experience in using or creating technology to gather, share, and learn from each other. Not only do I consider She's Geeky worth attending for its own sake, but I think it would be a great place to get familiar with the unconference format if a woman was a little shy about diving into the Bar Camp scene.
Registration is open now at http://shesgeeky.org/. I'm geeky, and I'm goin' ... how about you?
