We are thrilled to have Jisc as one of key sponsors for 2018! When I first spoke with the team at Jisc and Simone I knew they were a company who would fly the flag and have a solid plan to ‘making change happen’. We are going to create a leading-edge community with passion, and tap into a huge audience that wants to join the Women Rock movement. Simone is a people business partner, working out of Jisc’s London offices. Jisc has a ‘people plan’ and she helps to deliver it, leading on equality, diversity and inclusion. When she’s not doing that, she’s an enthusiastic baker who’s overly modest about her abilities and also a keen walker and cyclist.WHO ARE JISC?Jisc is a membership organisation for the UK’s universities, colleges and skills training organisations with offices across the UK, including Bristol.Jisc provides its members and customers with big-ticket shared digital infrastructure, including this country’s national research and education network (NREN), which is one of the busiest in Europe and serves 18m users. It’s called the Janet Network and it is super-fast, reliable, secure and built to handle the huge volumes of traffic that education and research organisations generate.Jisc is a member organisation dedicated to saving the UK’s education sector money with shared services, including data centres so that researchers can store their data and share it securely with others. It also negotiates cost-effective deals and preferential service levels with commercial suppliers and offers advice and training on many different topics to help members work smarter through digital technologies.Sounds like it may be full of nerdy men in sandals? Possibly so, once upon a time, but that’s been changing fast. And change is accelerating now that Jisc has launched a programme to make it a great place to work for women, as well as for others who have lots to offer but don’t necessarily fit the into the typical techy mould.WHAT IS YOUR DAY-TO-DAY ROLE AS PEOPLE MANAGER AT JISC?I aim to support managers and staff right through the employee ‘journey’, from the moment when we place the job ad or pick up a cv to beyond the point when they leave us. We want good people to stay with us and develop, but if they choose to move on then we’d like them to leave as advocates of Jisc. It’s important to us that Jisc is a great place to work. Of course, different people will have different reasons to think so, and it’s my job to make sure we’re imaginative and supportive enough to be a great employer for all sorts of people.HOW DO YOU SUPPORT WOMEN WHO WORK IN TECHNOLOGY JOBS AT JISC?Well, we strive to support all our female and male staff right across the organisation in the same way – by being open, responsive and as flexible as we can to support individual needs and aspirations.But it’s certainly true that women are under-represented in technology jobs generally and it is not just girls, there is a general lack of diversity in the sector. We are doing various things to even things up, both at Jisc and across the education and research sector generally.For example, we’ll be working with STEM ambassadors to encourage everyone to think seriously about studying science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects and we took part in ‘Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day’ this year for the first time. The primary school girls were so enthusiastic and some showed real early promise. One seven-year old showed an impressive level of understanding of direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks and of some of the steps we take to protect our members against them. Her dad is one of our technical staff and it’d be great if she wanted to follow in his footsteps.We’re going to start offering teachers placements at Jisc so they can discover the breadth of opportunities that exist in technology jobs and then go back into their schools enthusiastic and ready to spread the word.And we’re doing some work on unconscious bias, reviewing our policies and guidance to make sure we recruit on merit and providing training for our staff to demonstrate how bias can play itself out in the workplace. We are not just addressing unconscious bias by dragging our people through training, it is far deeper than that, for example through widening our perspectives we can reduce our biases so we’re running a campaign called ‘this is me’, encouraging our people to share their own stories with colleagues so that we can walk a mile in each other’s shoes, to widen all our perspectives and demonstrate that we respect, value and celebrate difference. This is not only about supporting women in a traditionally male-dominated environment, it’s also about celebrating diversity.HOW ARE YOU ATTRACTING WOMEN TO APPLY FOR JISC?There’s lots that we plan to do on this but as a start we’ve adopted some simple, practical steps that we hope will tempt more women to think about giving it a go. We’re overhauling the careers pages on our website, and being more mindful of the language we use in our adverts for example. We never advertise jobs as full time because lots of people, and particularly women, need flexibility. We’re certainly not slaves to the nine-to-five model. And we’re thinking again about where we recruit, and how to reach the widest possible pool of potential recruits.We’re moving increasingly towards smarter working, not longer working. The long hours culture tends to disadvantage women more than men. Still true, after all these years!And we’re reviewing our family leave policy to ensure that it meets more diverse needs. This will benefit both men and women because we’re focused on genuine equality. So we’re making sure that the policy is more flexible, allowing for the usual maternity and paternity leave and also adoption leave and shared parental leave. And when men opt to take this leave they’ll get the same contractual enhancements as women.ARE TALENTED WOMEN INTIMIDATED IN A MALE-DOMINATED WORKING ENVIRONMENT?It’s so hard to answer this question. I’m as sure as I can be that the men who work in our technical departments don’t intend to intimidate. Some women might sometimes feel at a disadvantage, it’s human nature when you’re in the minority. But what I can say with absolute certainty is that we’re working on making sure that Jisc is welcoming to women, listening to their voices, valuing their contribution and offering great opportunities for fulfilling work and ongoing career development.AND FROM ME TO YOU.‘Privilege is invisible to those who have it’. – Michael Kimmel, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York. For me this gets people to stop and think when they get stuck and don’t see it.Diversity is not about quotas, it is exciting. Gaining true representation creates more rounded, innovative, dynamic and impactful products, actions and solutions. That benefits everyone.At Jisc we’ve made a good start on changing things, at least in our own back yard. Thanks Simone & the team at Jisc, so excited to have you as our sponsors.#Womenrock

The first “Women Rock” event took place at the newly renamed DevOpsGroup in Cardiff last Thursday ( 21st June ’18) and despite Ed Sheeran pulling in 60,000 fans to a packed Principality stadium less than a mile away, the turnout was fantastic.There were plenty of thought provoking stories shared – challenges, successes and inspiration. Exactly why this event was created!I was a bit emotional when I arrived, stuck in the car from Bristol for 4 hours, arrived an hour late, ran from the car park arms full with banners and balloons and then smashed a glass of prosecco when introducing myself, GO ME! Really, the reason for the emotions was because I got to see what I have created and what was plain to see is people are extremely passionate about this ‘movement’ and excited to see how things develop. Mark Elias, IT Infrastructure Manager at Coastal Housing Group quoted    ‘The event was full of passion, purpose, fire, care, tenderness and awareness.’ It really was!We heard from Charlotte Bennett – Information Security, Product Development & Diversity at Admiral , Emma Hopkinson-Spark  – Delivery Director at 101 Ways, Kate Jones – Operations Director at The DevOps Group & Louise David – BD lead at Chwarae Teg. The theme of the evening was …… them. I didn’t want this to be another event where we speak and hear about diversity and the problems with the industry, we know there are issues, this evening was about all of us and the ladies successful careers. We also heard about what their respective organisations are doing to attract, promote and retain female talent which is pushing the boundaries and creating opportunities.We are looking forward to the next event in just a few months’ time, you won’t want to miss it. In the meantime we will be sharing the stories of many more inspirational women around the South West & Wales.Finally a special thanks to James Smith – Devops Group for stepping up and covering whilst I was re-routed around the countryside end of Newport…………. TWICE! and to the whole team at The DevOps Group for sponsoring and hosting the event.CONNECT, LEARN AND TAKE ACTION ON GENDER DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION.#womenrock

It’s definitely a whirlwind in the tech industry as it is ever evolving and changing, but I absolutely love it! – An interview with Georgina HopkinsonGeorgie is an ambassador for Women Rock, and an agile coach at OVO energy. Her interest in coaching started during her time volunteering as a ChildLine counsellor for the NSPCC. She has a genuine passion for coaching individuals and teams to increase motivation, team effectiveness but most importantly, increase happiness in the workplace. She’s fallen into the tech world through her passion for coaching but now thrives off the excitement of working in an ever-evolving industry of highly skilled professionals. She’s spoken at Agile MeetUps and is speaking at Agile on the Beach this summer to share her experiences and enthusiasm for working in an Agile way.FROM MARKETING CONSULTANT TO AGILE COACH HOW DID YOU GET INTO TECHNOLOGY?I left university pretty much not knowing what I wanted to do, but being open to learn new things and see what opportunities were out there. So I joined a large financial services organisation and worked my way up. My role just before I became an Agile Coach was in marketing as a project consultant, I was managing part of the marketing side of a large tech project (moving all our docs online). The team I was working within happened to be an Agile tech team and I felt so in awe of the knowledge and skills of the developers and loved working with them and being able to learn from them, I then started working as an Agile Coach and never looked back. It’s definitely a whirlwind in the tech industry as it is ever evolving and changing, but I absolutely love it!WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AS AGILE COACH?As an Agile Coach I am responsible for helping teams and organisations to be the best they can be. Just to caveat that, by ‘best’ I mean the happiest team who are building the right thing so the customer’s happy, building it right so it’s of high quality, and trying to increase the cadence of delivery (due to this ever changing market we are living in, we want to try and stay ahead!) I do this by coaching, teaching, mentoring and facilitating… I mean, there’s a bit more to it, so feel free to contact me if you want me to go into more detail.WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUNGER WOMEN IN SCHOOL?I think young women, and men (particularly when I was at school) had no idea of the exciting careers out there, particularly in the tech industry. There are some awesome games available that can teach them to code, there are also some really exciting programmes that teach young people to code. I would say, just take all of these opportunities! Instead of hopping on Instagram or Facebook when you go on your phones, go onto Kodable or any one of the other coding games – there is a massive range from basic to more advanced and there are reviews online so find one that you enjoy. This is an incredible skill to have, even if you don’t want to be a developer, if you decide one day to start your own business, imagine being able to simply make your own website or even an awesome new app to get people engaged?WHAT IS THE BIGGEST SUCCESS IN YOUR CAREER?My biggest success is probably being chosen to speak at Agile On The Beach which I’m really excited for this summer. However, when I look back over my career, my proudest moments are when I’ve been able to make someone’s’ work life a little happier or easier.WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE QUOTE?‘The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.’ – Albert Einstein.WHO IS YOUR ROLE MODEL?As an Agile Coach, it’s probably Henrik Kniberg as he really embraces the above quote.IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANYTHING WITHIN THE INDUSTRY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND WHY?I would introduce talk of ‘feelings’ into the workplace, I would want to know how people feel about organisational decisions and team decisions, even about decisions on what code to use, for example, because only then will we be able to truly work together in line with our values with true empathy for one another.HOW CAN WE GET MORE WOMEN INTO TECH CAREERS FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE?For me, seeing women in these roles helps. So more women who have made it into the tech industry should be going to schools and teaching girls that not only is this a train that they should get on because it’s awesome, but also that it’s one they can get on as it’s accessible to them! Thanks Georgie#womenrock

I have had a couple of very interesting and insightful meetings over the past week all around ‘Role Models’. This topic is my biggest passion as I care so much about the future of our industry and encouraging young girls to follow a career in technology. I met with Jaycee Cheong about her volunteering for Woman Hack for Non-Profits and also the amazing work she does with Code First: Girls, you’ll see her story soon. This article I am sharing comes from someone who connected with me to discuss the future of role models and how women and young girls can feel intimated by seniority. Think, are female founders and CEO’s always going to be their role models, or are they the women right now who do the job everyday. The female devops engineers building and optimised infrastructure, the fullstack developers making augmented reality games or the software testers who are testing a health care application changing the way medicine is distributed? I applauded the women who have followed their passion and worked so hard to create their own business and the women who have progressed into Senior and Leadership roles but I truly believe that we need role models who are similar to the next generation, the women developing, engineering, testing etc to promote Women In Tech.ROLE MODEL LADDERSA CONCRETE PATH TO GETTING MORE WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY.By Nicole Bryan, VP product management Tasktop Technologies.This was a week of extremes for me. Seven customer visits in a whirlwind trip to Europe. It was exhilarating, as every one of them was impressed with how Tasktop is innovating. But there was something missing. Women. There was not a single woman in any of the meetings I attended. Disheartening. Then, my 10-year old daughter chose a woman on my team as her role model to write about for her school project. Back to exhilarated. And now, on the airplane for the long trip home, reflecting on this roller coaster of emotions, I just realized something that can help girls and women, especially women in technology. We need “role model ladders”. And you can help. Let me explain.What is a role model ladder? As Albert Schweitzer once said “Example is leadership.” Basically, people need their role models to be attainable examples of what they can be. That means role models need to be similar enough, or close enough in age, to help someone imagine the path that lets them “be” like that role model. Sure, heroes are great, but our role models need to be closer to who we are. For example, my 10-year old daughter needs to be able to look up to someone who is just starting out in a career — because she can imagine that. And that person, the person who is just starting out in her career, needs to have someone to model who has say, 10–15 years of experience. And that woman in turn needs to see a female in a significant management position. Each rung in the ladder is quite important — and if you are missing a rung in your organization, it severely limits the likelihood of creating a thriving female cohort in your organisation.So how can we create these ladders in the technology industry? Here’s how Tasktop is doing it. One of our three founders, our Chief Science Officer, is female. She, very early on as the company began growing proactively, talked about and reminded Mik, our CEO, that in order to foster a great and collaborative workplace in tech you need to actively recruit and retain women. She knew that in technology women don’t come knocking on your door. You have to find them. Mik took this to heart and he found, well, me ;). I didn’t find Tasktop, Tasktop found me. Then it was my turn. As my team began to grow, I had hundreds of resumes cross my desk…but no women. So, I contacted a nearby university and found, you guessed it, a female professor in the information systems department. She actively reached out to talented women in her program and encouraged them to apply. And that is how we hired the woman my 10 year old daughter has chosen as her role model for her school project. Now that is quite a ladder! And, our Senior Director of Engineering took a look at his management team, and recognizing that they were all men, consciously sought out a talented female engineering manager. He just built what is likely one of the hardest rungs in the ladder — because women engineers have a strong tendency to move out of engineering entirely as they progress in their careers. But now all of the co-ops in our engineering group see a clear path. And that will undoubtedly make a difference for our company.This week, while on these customer visits, I did notice there were some women in the development bullpens. But if all they see is men attending the “important meetings,” the ladder will be broken. You can change that in your company. There is really no magic to it. Simply look at the women in your company’s organisational chart to see where you are missing rungs in your ladder. Then focus on those areas. Be specific. Cultivate a woman to fill the middle management role in IT, or a senior engineering role. And make sure your culture and environment are inclusive, so that when you expend this energy and find a great woman, their contributions are welcome and they will stay and grow with your organization. It will take effort and you may need to get creative about how you find and cultivate talented women — and creating an inviting culture where women want to stay also requires creativity and perseverance. But it is worth it.It is only through small but intentional steps that we can change things. Tasktop is doing it. Your company can too. And, I guarantee that if your daughter comes home and says that she is writing about someone in your ladder, you’ll feel exhilarated and hopeful about the future.#Womenrock #rolemodels

I met Lisa at WTF (Women Tech Founders) a month or so ago, where she did a panel discussion about being a female CEO. If you just look at her linkedin profile she has had a phenomenal career within construction and now technology so she was someone I was really excited to sit down with. She is a woman to watch and an inspiration for females wanting to start-up in tech.YOU HAVE HAD A VERY SUCCESSFUL CAREER FROM COMPLETING YOUR PHD, TO BUILDINGS LEADER, DIRECTOR, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, WHAT’S YOUR STORY LISA?I’m an engineer by background – Civil and Architectural, with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics (which involved spending four years writing C# code). So a pretty logic-driven and practical person. When I got into industry I did a lot of different things. I project managed one of the first electric vehicle demonstrator projects in the UK, optimised the design of an opera house to save 3000 tons of carbon and worked out how to stop some wind turbines sinking in the North Sea.I’ve always liked doing new things. Then I pitched to my employer that I should start a new regional business for them (so I could cut my commute and see more of my then 1-year old daughter!). And I spent five years doing that, winning business, managing clients and growing the team. That business is still going strong and I’m hugely proud of it. But about two years ago I had a burn out. It was the weirdest thing, to feel less and less in control and less and less able to make the right decisions. So I took a sabbatical and my experience ultimately inspired me to start HellyHolly. Now I run HellyHolly, Carba and also help my previous employer with their digital venturing programme. It’s a great mix, and I love it.COULD YOU TELL ME ABOUT HELLYHOLLY AND CARBA CONSULTING?Carba is a consulting business that offers expert witness services to the construction industry; when there is a dispute the legal teams or insurers will employ experts to research what’s gone wrong and give their opinion on who is responsible and why. We specialise in steelwork fabrication and design, and digital design processes, including forensic investigation of digital building models. My role in the business is strategic, I don’t contribute opinion but I work on quality and business development – reviewing what’s produced and helping with client relationships.HellyHolly is a startup in the AI/chat space. We make a productivity platform for managing the competing demands of all the different domains of your life – work, social, home, family. A huge amount of mental energy goes into making sure all these different areas are in sync and coordinated, because existing tools and data are in silos that don’t talk to each other. When you’re busy, stressed and tired doing all that coordinating and collaborating can easily go wrong. So we make software that stops things going wrong, helps you make better decisions and shows you opportunities to do the things you want to do. We’re currently running in private beta with working parents – these people have a lot of stuff to get right and feel terrible if they get something wrong! So it’s a great use case to start with.HAVE YOU EVER SUFFERED WITH THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME?All the time! For me it manifests more in finding it hard to decide what advice to take and what to leave. I’m naturally collaborative – I’ll always crowdsource opinion and insight from my colleagues or networks, I value others’ perspectives and expertise and I will always listen. There’s always something to learn right? Sometimes though you can get into the habit of undervaluing your own opinions. So I’m getting better at looking at the advice I receive through the lens of that particular person’s perspective, not taking it as hard rote fact, and trusting my gut.WHAT IS THE WORST BUSINESS ADVICE YOU HAVE RECEIVED?Being advised to use tools and processes that don’t fit the stage of the business. Having been in large corporates, grown a business from scratch to scale and now running a startup, I’ve learnt that you need to pick tools – whether mental models, frameworks, software, whatever, that are right for right now. You can’t take the tools you use to run an established business and apply them to a startup, because what you’re trying to do is entirely different. An established business is all about refining and optimising operations, stabilising and embedding. A startup is all about learning, trying stuff, moving fast and evolving. You can’t write an 80-line gantt chart for that, so don’t try.WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO A WOMAN LOOKING TO START HER OWN BUSINESS?Spend some time learning about yourself first. What’s your purpose? What really drives you? Whatever you’ll do you’re going to need bags of passion for it. Passion is the only thing that’s going to get you through the deep, deep pits of despair when it seems like nothing is working or no one else cares, or worse – when everyone thinks you’re wrong! You’re going to have to commit seemingly irrationally to your vision for an unreasonably long time so it helps hugely if it aligns with how you want to show up in the world.WHAT HAS BEEN THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING TECH PRODUCTS AS A NON-TECH FOUNDER?Making progress when the only resources you have are your own time and the time you can convince other people to give you for free, and getting that MVP into existence when you have a big CTO-shaped hole in the company. I see a lot of other ‘non-tech’ founders struggle at this point too; you have to decide to raise money, pay an agency or find a technical co-founder. Even if you think you are ‘non-technical’, I would recommend getting absolutely as far as you can as fast as you can under your own steam. We hacked together our first proof of concept prototype ourselves before finding our technical co-founders, using things like google scripts, zapier, slack etc. You can get a long way with free (or very low cost) tools. This isn’t going to be a product that you can take to market, but you can use it to share your vision and to do customer research and ultimately to convince others to join you. I feel like we massively lucked out when we found our co-founders and could get on with building our ‘proper’ product and our company, we’re such a great fit as a team.WHAT SINGLE THING WOULD YOU CHANGE TO IMPROVE GENDER EQUALITY WITHIN TECHNOLOGY OR EVEN CONSTRUCTION?Having spent all my working life as a minority gender in the workplace (including being the only female on a construction site of 250+ all male welders at nineteen years old) I’ve seen a lot of issues. I’m not a fan of the ‘fix the women’ approach that is typically how companies choose to tackle gender issues – got a gender equality problem? Let’s get women to be different so then they’ll succeed more! To me this is a lazy attempt at a solution. This isn’t to say that mentoring or coaching isn’t valuable; it’s valuable to anyone, not just women. But mentoring, coaching, role models, case studies or whatever aren’t going to change anything if we don’t fix the culture first. We need to fix the inherent structural reasons that make the landscape of opportunity disproportionately favourable or difficult to one gender or another. We need to fix decision making. We need to fix bias, conscious or otherwise, in systems and processes. And for me this comes down to better diversity right from the top down. So until someone can prove to me by research that there is true equality in our selection, promotion and progression processes then we should have quotas that require equality at board and senior management levels.I also want to see more men speaking up for gender equality, by rejecting appearing on ‘manels’ for example, and calling out bias. This isn’t just a women’s issue, equality and diversity makes things better for everyone.WHAT’S NEXT?The fund I help manage in my corporate VC role is expanding, so there’s a lot of strategy to work out about how to scale up our processes and collaborate more with startups, which is super exciting. For Carba we’ve got a couple of really big international cases on at the moment, so that’s heads down and power through time. And for HellyHolly we’re building on from our private beta – the next few product iterations to get through before we go for a public launch. I’m hugely excited to get the product in the hands of more people, learn how it gets used ‘in anger’, and keep on making it better and better. Anyone interested in the launch can let us know at www.ourcanary.com, we’d love to hear from you.AND FROM ME TO YOU ….Waaa there are so many!“No ache, no cake”, which I say to myself over and over in my head during my spin class, right when I hit that ‘why on earth am I doing this to myself again’ moment.And “We are what we repeatedly do – excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – I like this because it reminds me that we can chose to become whatever we want – to build skills, adopt new behaviours or change our mindset. Nothing is inherent – you just have to start acting how you want to become. Thanks Lisa#womenrock

I met up with Jaycee a couple of weeks ago, and all I can say is WOW, she is such a positive inspiration for the industry and women in tech. She didn’t follow the typical STEM route, but always knew she wanted to follow a career in technology so did her research and completed a course with Makers Academy. She is often at meet-ups around the city, hackathons and conferences to stay in the loop of emerging frameworks, practices and languages.Jaycee also contributes back to the community, mentoring others on their programming journey, contributing to Open Source, and presenting technical topics. Together we are going to be working on something really exciting for Bristol over the next coming months (now  https://codebar.io/!)Here is her story.FROM A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN HUMAN NUTRITION TO FULL STACK ENGINEER, WHAT IS YOUR STORY?Growing up, I have an interest in both areas, science and coding. I decided to pursue Human Nutrition degree and during the years at university, I took the time to explore career options after graduation. In the end, I realised I loved anything tech. Over the years since graduation, I worked in tech companies but the roles I went for became more technical and eventually I decided to go to a bootcamp, and landed my first software development job shortly after the bootcamp.WHY DID YOU CHOOSE MAKERS ACADEMY?I decided to attend a bootcamp after exploring a few training options so I researched a few online and local bootcamps. As my goal was to be a part of a software development team, I spoke to experienced developers, and they mentioned that the curriculum at Makers Academy really stood out from the crowd. I learnt a lot, not only technical knowledge, but a few other things such as adopting a growth mindset and more. Link to my blogpost about this.WHERE DOES YOUR PASSION FOR TECHNOLOGY COME FROM?I completed a Double ICT module at GCSE, and one of the projects was to build a website! I was obsessed with that project, and I still remember the Myspace days, which helped me learnt HTML and CSS!BEING A ‘FULLSTACK DEVELOPER’ ISN’T JUST ABOUT CODING, WHAT DO YOU DO DAY TO DAY AT IMMERSIVE LABS?My day to day throughout the week at Immersive Labs can be quite vary. Beside coding, I help the business to translate business requirement into technical requirement for my team. I also facilitate Scrum duties within the team, so the team can stay focus within each sprint on the goal.YOU ARE A VOLUNTEER FOR WOMEN HACK FOR NON-PROFITS, A LEADER OF WOMEN WHO CODE BRISTOL AND AN INSTRUCTOR AT CODE FIRST: GIRLS – WHAT DOES THIS ENTAIL?Women Hack for Non-profits is a community of women in tech building open source projects for non-profit organizations and individuals with a cause. As a volunteer, I was involved in the organisation’s website rebuild project and I was mentoring a few volunteers with the project they were involved in.I am also an instructor at CodeFirst:Girls where female student at universities attend a free 8 weeks course to learn about coding. I’ve taught around 20 students each term with other instructors about frontend technologies since 2017. I love the demo day at the end of the course, where the students present their website they built.As a leader of Women Who Code Bristol, I organise events and workshops for the Women Who Code network in Bristol. Recently we partnered with LGBTQIA+ in tech for an amazing software development talk and an evening of networking. We are currently planning our summer social and hopefully have more volunteers on board!WE SPOKE ABOUT THE NEED FOR MORE TECH VOLUNTEERS IN BRISTOL, WHAT IS THE MOST REWARDING THINGS ABOUT BEING A VOLUNTEER?For me, it is when they have a lightbulb moment. Knowledge has the ability to empower anyone to continue learning and we need everyone’s contribution in tech to ensure the tech we use will always be fair and accessible.HOW CAN SOMEONE BECOME A VOLUNTEER IN TECH?The first step is to reach out to the tech community in your local area. There are many initiatives across the UK to teach people across all ages and backgrounds about technology, such as CodeFirstGirls aiming at students, CodeYourFuture aiming at refugees, CodeClub aiming at children. Or you can even do it online, such as JrDevMentoring https://launchpass.com/jr-dev-mentoringWHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUNG WOMEN WHO WOULD LIKE TO BECOME A DEVELOPER?Join a group in the tech communities, and look for a mentor. No one should do it alone, and the support from your group and mentor can go a very long way!WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE GETTING WHERE YOU ARE TODAY?The biggest challenge… it’s a bit cheesy but it was believing in myself. I have a wonderful partner who is my constant source of encouragement and support, and honestly the tech communities in London such as Codebar, Women Who Code London and Ladies Who Code, where I first started out were so welcoming and supportive, they gave me the confidence to start public speaking, and become more involved in the tech community in Bristol so the members will always have the level of support I had.You can reach Jaycee via Twitter @herecomesjaycee if you want to have a chat about anything!Thank you so much Jaycee #yourock #womenroc

DevOpsGuys build high performing IT teams within enterprise organisations.The company work with household names such as Vodafone, ASOS, Fitness First and Admiral. Along with private sector, they are supporting important changes and aiding in the digital transformation across the UK, working with Companies House, DVLA and MOJ.They are winners of: Best Tech Workplace, Wales Start up Creative and finalists at the St David Awards, the national awards of Wales which are nominated for by the public. Deemed ‘thought leaders’ in an emerging field, they champion Wales as the home of Digital Innovation.The company also has an in-house training academy, having felt the pain of the skills shortage within their industry they decided to tackle it head on. The DevOpsGuys Academy was founded on the belief that they can make a positive difference to the IT skills gap and nurture the next generation of talent along the way.I spoke with Kate about her stellar career within technology. From programmer to now Operations Director, she has a lot of determination to drive positive changes and is an exceptional leader with a passion to encourage more women into technology.KATE, WHAT IS YOUR DAY TO DAY ROLE AT DOG?My time is largely split over ensuring we have the right processes and systems in place to scale and on day to day operational issues, traditionally I’d be giving direction and the solution to solve the problem directly.I try and do things a little differently, a lot of my time is spent listening to the challenges we face and helping individuals or groups by teasing out the details and giving them a sounding board to talk through the problem. Trying to help guide them on how they could solve it, injecting an occasional steer. Sometimes this doesn’t always work and people need (or want) a direct steer but generally I find it helps people understand the course of action, could things have been done differently or give them a perspective they may have missed as they are close to the detail.I find the approach rewarding on two fronts, talking it through helps understand why my team have chosen a sequence of actions and I can prompt some reflection, secondly we get fresh, innovative ways of problem solving operational issues from a diverse workforce.WHAT IS THE BEST PART OF BEING A ‘WOMEN IN TECH’?In what is a very male-dominated environment it’s nice to be able to provide that different perspective, to make a place more diverse, to challenge the status quo and hopefully encourage more women to have careers in tech. I’m not sure this is because I’m a woman but its exciting. It’s always changing, it’s always interesting and there is soo much opportunity to shape the future.You have had a hugely successful career in technology, from Project Manager to Operations Director what challenges have you faced with career progression?I think peoples expectations of me has been a challenge. For a reasonable period I knew I had bosses who thought I would start a family and saw this as a hinderance, this left me feeling conflicted. I didn’t want to deny I wanted a family but I was very aware that this was seen as a negative thing to aspire to. Rather than companies working out how to make this work, they would work out how to get round it and who would replace you. I would also say my own internal voices have challenged me, I still find it hard to sell myself and the reality is that in many companies you have to do that. You need to put yourself in the running if you want to be considered.WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN WHO WOULD LIKE TO STEP UP INTO A MANAGEMENT POSITION?Be confident, you can do it. Put yourself in a position to be considered, look at how your male colleagues put themselves forward and ask yourself “Are they really that much better than you, or just more confident to say they can do it?”. I think the best advice I ever gave myself is no matter a persons’ seniority they are just a person at the end of the day, don’t be intimidated. Women (including myself) are too good at looking at their flaws instead of their strengths.DID YOU ALWAYS KNOW THAT WORKING IN TECHNOLOGY WAS WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO?Ha ha, no not at all. I have two brothers and when we were kids we had a Commodore 64 and we used to code from a book and save to a tape. My brother’s programs always worked, mine, not so much. I did a politics and history degree. I kind of fell into tech and realised quite quickly that it offered such a spectrum of variety. Initially, I was a developer, I liked the logic and I liked making something work (I had progressed from my early days) but I think the bit I liked the most was learning about new industries, and the tech gave me this opportunity, it was always changing. And it’s all around you, so once I found it, it just felt right.FROM MY KNOWLEDGE, THE DEVOPS GUYS DO VERY WELL IN SUPPORTING AND HIRING STUDENTS INTO THE BUSINESS. HOW DO YOU ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO JOIN DOG?I think we try hard to promote an external image of inclusion and diversity that reflects our internal way of working. We offer very flexible working and try hard to understand what a person needs. We understand that for many women they do have a family which means they have other commitments and we want to make that as easy as possible for them, you shouldn’t have to choose a career or a family. We actively discourage people working long anti social hours which also often leads to trying to be the hero, we are all about teamwork. The biggest issue we have is that there just aren’t that many women out there who are even looking to be in tech at the stage we are looking.We need to find a way to encourage the younger generation of females to stay in tech so that they have the opportunity to even try. We are trying and need to do more though. We are looking to have regular sessions at our monthly company meeting that are solely focused on women and how everyone can help make it an even playing field. We have started a lean in group to have a forum for women to discuss things. But we need to do more, we can always do more.HOW CAN MANAGERS HELP RETAIN TECHNICAL WOMEN IN THEIR TEAM?They need to listen. There are a lot of men in managerial positions in tech and they care but they need to actually listen to what the women in their team are saying, not assume they know. I have worked with a lot of men who are quite passionate about getting more women in tech, but until recently none had actually asked me what I thought. If we want to retain women we need to listen to them and allow them to be themselves not try and turn them into something that suits other people.WE ARE ADVOCATES FOR PROMOTING WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A WOMEN CONSIDERING A CAREER WITHIN THE INDUSTRY?Don’t let other people tell you what you can and can’t do. It might be hard but that doesn’t’ mean it’s not possible. You can have a family and a career, yes its hard, but it is possible. Don’t feel you have to make a choice. There are an awful lot of assumptions people make, its learnt behaviour, challenge it, try and find a partner who will be a true partner and share your home life 50/50 and enable you to have the career that you are capable of. And tech can be so wide-ranging. To so many, it just seems to mean coding but there is such a vast array of jobs in the tech industry, don’t write it off without finding out first. And its flexible, a lot of tech companies are a lot more flexible than traditional companies, this really helps with the work-life balance that so many people want and when it comes to having a family it’s invaluable.WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT LEADERSHIP AND MENTORING?It matters. Being a good leader is hard, you have to put your ego aside, ask yourself tough questions about what you could have done better, realise that your behaviour shapes other people and that you are not there to tell people what to do but help guide them to where they need to get to. Working out how to move away from blame and understand how you get better, how you help.Another quote that I think says a lot of what leadership works towards is “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”. SocratesFor a long time, I’m not sure I thought I was either a leader or a mentor, seeing yourself through other peoples eyes is not always that obvious. So I think the other thing I have learnt is things I take for granted that I know, or do, have value to others and sharing them is a very positive thing. And you can always get better at it, for me it’s a huge responsibility that I love but I feel very responsible for. I want to help make people in our organisation the best that they can be and that takes time and effort.FROM ME TO YOU ….“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t give up.” – Stephen HawkinsThank you so much Kate, I am looking forward to hearing you speak at the Women Rock event on the 21st June.#DOGROCKS #WOMENROCK

This is an interview that I was really excited to do, and explores the personal story of another talented woman in technology. I met with some of the team at Mayden earlier this year and I was really impressed by the set up of the organisation and also the achievements of their Mayden Academy.Mayden Academy teaches aspiring developers the fundamentals of coding, software design and agile project management in 16 weeks. It was created by a leading tech firm in the South West. No experience necessary, you’ll learn all you need to land your first job as a junior software developer. They know exactly what employers are looking for, and their intensive training will get you there!I was interested to speak to Ruth about why she chose Mayden Academy and her journey through university. In my experience, and through conversations I have had with others, the consensus is that women who graduate with a maths related degree are earmarked for careers in accountancy, scientific research and economics although rarely programming and as Andrew Carr would echo, software development is all about problem solving to create beautiful code. Some of the most talented software engineers I have met, and had feedback on in my time have been very mathematical. Maths and programming are closely interlinked and it would be great to see more women studying maths related degrees consider programming a career option, this is something we all know needs to be worked on and promoted which we will be soon.Ruth’s career should encourage any young lady who is thinking about a career in tech that anything is possible, yes it’s a lot to take in, a lot to learn, but remember—it’s worth it.RUTH, YOU ARE NOW A SOFTWARE DEVELOPER FOR MAYDEN BUT YOU DID A MATHS DEGREE, HOW DID YOU BECOME A SOFTWARE DEVELOPER?I really enjoyed studying mathematics, especially the abstract concepts and logic puzzles and I wanted to find a real world application that would have the fun and satisfaction of problem solving with a positive impact in the world. I investigated a few options, and software development stood out to me, so I gave it a try, and then I enjoyed it so much I knew it was what I wanted to do!HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT MAYDEN AND THE MAYDEN ACADEMY?I first found out about Mayden at a fair at university for companies that had taken on computer science placement students. I met a couple of people who had done placements and one of the directors and loved what I heard about the company. The culture and values of the company along with the areas they work in really drew me to them and I was so glad to have the opportunity of doing the Mayden Academy to give me all the skills I needed to get stuck in to working in my team.YOU WERE THE ONLY WOMAN WITHIN THE ACADEMY WHEN YOU DID YOUR COURSE, HOW DID THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?Although it might sound a little daunting to be doing an intensive course for 16 weeks in a room with 9 men (2 trainers and 7 other students), it really made no difference to how I was taught, valued as a team member working together on projects or my ability to learn and progress. Both trainers and other students were friendly and it was a great environment to learn in.HOW HAS THE ACADEMY HELPED YOU WITH YOUR CAREER?Learning rapidly and intensely for 16 weeks was brilliant to set me up to go straight into a development team afterwards. I was able to learn relevant skills and tools in an environment with trainers ready to answer questions as quickly as I could think of them and alongside peers who were grappling with the same puzzles I was. Working on projects with the other students in the course gave me the chance to learn incredibly valuable non-technical skills too which prepared me really well to go and work in a very similar environment.WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO GIRLS IN HIGH SCHOOL WHO ARE INTERESTED IN TECHNOLOGY?If you enjoy solving problems and working with others to find ways to do things smarter and better, the world needs people like you! Keep learning, keep asking questions, keep challenging yourself. There is no reason you can’t do as well as your male peers at Maths, Computer Science or whatever you choose to apply yourself to, go for it!WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN GRADUATES INTERESTED IN TECHNOLOGY?Get stuck in and give the tech industry a try, you might love it! Don’t let potentially unjustified preconceptions put you off pursuing something you enjoy and find satisfaction in doing!YOU MENTIONED TO ME THAT YOU DON’T HAVE LINKEDIN, ANY REASON BEHIND THIS?I have so far not seen a need to sign up, but neither have I really investigated its merits! I was fortunate in that through researching the local area through university and keeping my ears and eyes open I found a software job that was perfect for me.WHO DO YOU LOOK UP TO?I loved the film ‘Hidden Figures’ and I wish I could be as courageous and assertive as the three heroines Mary, Dorothy and Katherine. In challenging, male-dominated environments each of them were confident in their technical competency and potential to do work of great value. The manner in which they conducted themselves to remove any potential barriers they encountered lead to them having crucial roles in the work of NASA and enabled other females to join them.WHAT ARE YOU FUTURE AMBITIONS?I want to use my technical skill set, love of problem solving and logic to make a positive difference to people’s lives. I believe that we such an amazing opportunity to use tech intelligently to find solutions to problems we face as a society and I want to be part of the transformations. My current job at Mayden is transforming the way people access mental healthcare for example.WHAT DO YOU THINK IS LACKING FOR GIRLS/WOMEN WITHIN TECHNOLOGY?Perhaps a little confidence from within the community that we as women are valued for our contributions and opinions. The idea that we are the minority potentially feeds a rumour that we cannot speak up and will not be listened to by male peers. I have not found this to be the case, sometimes we just need to speak up a little I think! Thank you Ruth & the team at Mayden Academy, looking forward to working with you in the future. #womenrock

I met with Emma earlier this year and within the first 2 minutes it was obvious we shared the same passion. Emma is a delivery director at 101 ways, who are one of the fastest growing consultancies in the market, where people thrive by being themselves! She was the 2nd employee joining Kelly Waters, and you have probably seen the company is doing phenomenal things and going from strength to strength. Earlier this month Emma and the team hosted their first WTF (‘Women Tech Focus’) get together which is aimed specifically at the underrepresentation of women in technical careers, and addressing an obvious imbalance when looking at the number of female freelance consultants or contractors. Emma has had a very successful career contracting in many agile positions so I was keen to discuss more about this (the good and the bad!) and see what advice she can offer to any females thinking about taking the leap into the contracting world. It’s a great read, Emma is an inspirational character and if you aren’t following 101 Ways yet as a contractor or as a business who uses consultancies then you should be! They are an amazing bunch!YOU ARE ONE OF THE FIRST MEMBERS OF 101 WAYS WITH KELLY, WHAT IS YOUR DAY TO DAY ROLE?My day-to-day has completely changed since we started; that’s probably one of the things that I love the most.Back in 2015 I was working with Kelly on some part time coaching contracts. The following year, once we began partnering with more client organisations, building teams and growing 101 Ways, my role became much more business focused. Now I spend my time supporting and developing new and existing client partnerships as well as the consultants we have on sites. I still get the opportunity to do some personal and organisational coaching on a part-time basis, but much of the focus now is really about developing those coaching skills in others.YOU HAVE A SUCCESSFUL CONTRACTING CAREER BUT IN MY EXPERIENCE MANY WOMEN IN TECH AVOID CONTRACTING. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN ABOUT CONTRACTING POSITIONS?I think it can feel risky when you’re looking from the outside in. I struggled with the decision when I was offered my first contract role as my daughter was just a few months old at the time. But, I spoke to friends who had already made the transition, braved it and never regretted taking the plunge.I was given great advice to make sure I had at least three months ‘wages’ saved before I started. I had to pay two mortgage instalments before my first invoice was paid and it took a while to feel settled. One of the things I did was to pay myself regularly, whether I was working or not, which worked out well. Whilst I was working and invoicing, my business bank account was growing, which meant I was always able to take time off without impacting my personal income.I would work contract roles from September to May and take the summer off before starting again; it would allow me to work intensely and save up so I could take a break, spend time with my daughter and travel. Most importantly it was a break timed perfectly for the summer festivals season.COULD YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE NEW WTF COMMUNITY AT 101 WAYS?On International Women’s Day, we launched the 101 Ways’ Women’s Tech Focus (WTF) – a new community group. Our first event is on Wednesday 11th April and we’ll be talking about ‘going freelance’. What want to build a support network of women working in technology. We aim to facilitate the initial conversations so the groups can become self-organising and self-sufficient, and go on to work out how best to help each other in the future.WHAT IS THE BIGGEST SUCCESS IN YOUR CAREER?That’s hard to answer! There’s been plenty of career highs that I should be proud of. For example, I helped develop the standards and examination process for the Scrum Alliance CSP Certification (as it then was). I’m also on the team organising London’s Global Scrum Gathering 2018;and have both won awards and sat on the judging panel for the UK Agile Awards, which was exciting.At the risk of sounding cheesy though, what I’m most proud of is the people I’ve coached, the differences I’ve seen in them and how they’ve developed. Is that career success though? I don’t know. I truly believe my biggest successes are yet to come. While I don’t know what the future holds, I’m already working on a couple of new projects that I am excited to see develop over the next couple of years.AND THE BIGGEST STRUGGLE OR CHALLENGE?Time. I live in Somerset and work in London almost every day, but I still manage to spend time with my family in the morning, and am home in time for bedtime stories and snuggles. You get used to the travel, and helping grow a business is never a 9-to-5, but it’s pretty exhausting. I get incredibly frustrated when there isn’t isn’t enough time to do everything I want to do.WHAT DO YOU PUT THE RAPID RISE OF 101 WAYS DOWN TO?Without a doubt, it’s the people. We have an awesome team in 101 Ways; each and every one of us are able to connect with our clients and consultants in a very human way – and that’s the key. Our time is spent building partnerships and developing conversations and ways of working together. There’s no cookie-cutter approach to helping people and organisations; it has to be personal and individual, that’s why we’re called 101 Ways.IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANYTHING WITHIN THE INDUSTRY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND WHY?When it comes to hiring people, I’d like to see less emphasis on a specific amount of time spent working with any particular technology and more focus on good engineering practices, communication and collaboration, problem solving and analysis. Technologies will come and go, but quality engineers will always be valuable.HOW CAN WE GET MORE WOMEN INTO TECH CAREERS FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE?I believe it has to start young. As a woman who has been an engineer before moving into different roles within technology, I can only talk from personal experience about why I left an engineering career path. At the time, I didn’t know any other women engineers and never felt like I had a handle on the issues. As they say, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’.Being a mother of an eight-year-old girl gives you a different perspective. She’s a massive Minecraft fan and has asked if I can help her learn how to write her own mods. Most of the girls in her peer group seem to love gaming too. I recently gave a talk at her school to years 10 and 13 about technology careers and noticed a stark difference in the interest in technology between my daughters’ age group and teenage girls.Certainly, my message to my daughter and her friends as they grow up will be that it’s okay to be geeky. Expressing and following your passions – whether it’s creating a race of vampire mermaids in Minecraft or practising ballet in the garden – is always awesome. You don’t have to choose between one or the other. I never want her to be afraid to stand out from the crowd (says the mum with blue hair). The skills needed for the future of technology are rooted in creativity and imagination, leadership and communication. It’s everything we need to foster in our daughters anyway, regardless of the career path they choose.WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT BOTH YOUR ROLE AND ABOUT 101 WAYS?I love the variety and the people I get to work with. One the main things I enjoyed about being freelance was that it satisfied my wanderlust. I find with 101 Ways, it’s still sated by the diversity of projects and teams I work on/with, but I also have a core group of people (known as the crew!) that I can trust both on a professional and personal level. It’s the best of both worlds. Thank you Emma, keep an eye on the 101 ways website for details of their next event. I’m looking forward to working with you and seeing you at some events in Bristol in the very near future.#yourock #womenrock