There’s an annual conference in Sweden, organized solely for female students in tech, called DataTjej (roughly translated “Data Girl” or “Geek Girl” if you will). Its purpose is to promote the tech industry to female students on computer engineer programmes at Swedish universities. Hosted at the prestigious Chalmers University in Gothenburg last week, we went to meet the next generation of geeks.
When at a conference, you have to make use of the selfie stick – it’s the law.
Talking careers
For the attendees it’s four days filled to the brim with events and inspiring speakers. And one of the days being an opportunity for the students to pick the minds of those companies they are interested in. It’s very important to us at Pingdom to be part of, and promote, an inclusive and diversified tech scene. What better way to understand female student’s expectations of the tech scene than to talk to as many as we possibly could in one day.
There’s no denying that conversations like this is invaluable to us for so many reasons. We got a chance to meet one-on-one with more than 100 invited attendees, and discuss what it is we do and what our industry will look like in the future. We spoke to incredibly passionate, inquisitive, and curious girls from all over Sweden.
“We talked a lot about expectations once your life as a student is over and you instead contemplate your career in tech”, says Johanna Eriksson, Recruiter and one of the Pingdom representatives at the conference. “Naturally there was also a lot of talk of the challenges and opportunities being a woman in an industry so male-dominated.”
What we learned
A company’s purpose is something that was a talking point that kept coming up throughout the conference. Our intention to make the Internet faster and more reliable struck a chord among those we talked to. So did the chance to work with more than 700,000 customers and some of the biggest brands in the world. We put a lot of emphasis on having fun in the process.
“Probably more than anything, what we’re taking with us from meeting all the attendees is the incredible passion for all things IT that these girls have”, says Johanna Eriksson and concludes “It’s incredibly encouraging that so many take an interest in the tech scene and want to help shape it to something new, inclusive and exciting.”
Moving forward
We are curious to know what initiatives are being done in your community to promote an inclusive and diversified tech scene. Leave comments here or talk to us on Twitter, we’d love to hear from you.
