“Sisters are doin’ it for themselves.
Standin’ on their own two feet.
And ringin’ on their own bells.
Sisters are doin’ it for themselves.” – Eurythmics

Heather Cabot and Samantha Walravens’, Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking up Tech is an inspiring and informative book sharing the stories of the innovative women shaking up the world of tech, from entrepreneurs to technologists, and supporting each other.

The authors wanted to better understand:

1. Why the number of women working in tech has been steadily declining since the 1980’s
   • Few visible women in leadership fueled by under-representation
   • When you read any of the following, it’s not hard to see why there’s been a decline:
     • “ A Woman’s History of Silicon Valley”, by Jessi Hempel
     • “Women in Tech: The facts”, by Catherine Ashcraft, Brad McLain, and Elizabeth Eger
     • “The Elephant in the Valley” Survey – watch the video

2. What can be done to reverse the trend
   • Build an ecosystem of women supporting women from,
     • Female founders – Chapter 2
     • Feminist Financiers – Chapter 3
     • Confidence Coaches – Chapter 4
     • Work Life Warriors – Chapter 5
     • Campus Crusaders – Chapter 6
     • Pipeline promoters – Chapter 7

To get more girls into STEM they need – exposure, role models that they can relate to, and to understand the impact of STEM and what they can do with.

There needs to be an infrastructure in place to support girls to get into STEM and to continue to stay in STEM once they are there.

If you want to hear the stories of just some of the women shaking up tech, read this book.

After you read the book:

For more resources visit –   https://geekgirlrising.com/

If you’re in Canada – there’s this great initiative going on – Driving WinTech. Driving WinTech is a fact-finding mission by Women in Tech World, as part of their quest to elevate women in tech. They did a road trip across Canada doing 31 community conversations made up of both men and women to:

• Define – Who are women in tech in Canada?
• Understand – What are women’s experiences in the tech industry?
• Identify – What are best practices for inclusion and promotion of women in the tech Industry?

I was fortunate enough to participate in one of their community conversations. Even though those are now done, you can still help them collect data by taking the 10 minute survey on their website. With the data they collect they will:

• Create a set of Regional Playbooks to facilitate more inclusive and diverse tech communities
• Publish a National Report on the experiences of women in tech in Canada
• Share their data online and with the World Women Report by the State of Women, reaching 85 million subscribers