Women entrepreneurs and technologists: a growing community more welcomed here than Bay Area, other tech hubs [VIDEO]

Kate Krauss, a sometimes entrepreneur, has been involved in startups in both San Francisco and Philadelphia and says the tech scene here is more welcoming.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Kate Krauss did not anticipate getting involved in technology when she moved to Philadelphia 15 years ago. When she started working in communications for a friend’s Bay Area startup this past year, she noticed how female-friendly the Philadelphia tech community is compared to that of the male dominated tech scene in Silicon Valley.

Having lived in San Francisco for 10 years directly prior to relocating to Philadelphia, Krauss said she has seen a difference between the two cities and the way they treat the technology community.

“It’s not just the groups that are focused on women, it’s the whole community in Philadelphia that is really different,” Krauss said, suggesting that comes from a feminist attitude ingrained in the city years ago.

“It comes from friendliness and a charm that we have here in Philadelphia, and it kind of sends a mutual aid that I think comes out of our Quaker background. Whether you’re Quaker or not, it’s in the air here,” Krauss said. “We have hundreds of years of tradition of egalitarianism, and it influences everything we do. It’s in the water, it’s in the air, and it’s in the startup culture.”

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Corey Leigh Latislaw: co-founder of Android Alliance and advocate for women in technology

Corey Leigh Latislaw is the co-founder of the Android Alliance group. Latislaw is a Mobile Software Engineer at Comcast Interactive Media and believes women should play a larger part in the tech scene. Photo by Theresa Regan

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

As Corey Leigh Latislaw sat at a table in a small coffee shop near Rittenhouse Square surrounded by her laptop, phone and tablet, it was evident that technology plays a huge part in her everyday life.

Latislaw is not only a Mobile Software Engineer for Comcast Interactive Media, but is also the co-founder of Android Alliance, a meetup geared toward getting local Android developers to gather together and share ideas.

“[I] realized the need for a meetup in the area,” said Latislaw, a Tallahassee, Fla. native who moved to Philadelphia with her husband after working for Cisco Systems in Knoxville, Tenn. for two and a half years. “This emerging market didn’t really have anywhere for people to collaborate, to share, to make new apps together.”

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PyStar Philly offers Python training for women, part of female tech scene

Women gathered together during the Pystar Philly event, held at Azavea in Callowhill, to learn the basics of Python computer language.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

A perception exists that computer programming is dominated by males, though there’s more balance here than you might think.

Pystar Philly, held this Saturday at Azavea’s headquarters in Callowhill, is a workshop event designed specifically to reach out to women interested in learning to develop using the programming language Python.

“The goal is to introduce Python to a group of people who have never been exposed to it before, and make it seem fun, appealing and easy to do,” said Dana Bauer, event organizer and GIS analyst at Azavea, in an interview with Technically Philly.

“Python is cool because it is relatively easy to learn and start making things quickly,” Bauer said.

Engaging women who want to gain skills for a personal agenda or to make them more employable is the purpose of the Pystar workshops.

“We want to create a friendly, inviting environment for women interested in learning to code to do so in,” Bauer said.

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Web Start Women launches web development classes tonight, marks growth in community

Tonight will mark at least the third recent, focused initiative to bring women closer to the forefront of the technology community here in Philadelphia.

Web Start Women, a group dedicated to teaching basic elements of web design and encouraging and fostering startups, will host its first paid CSS class in South Philly, the first of four weekly classes dedicated to the subject.

Founded by University of Pennsylvania web design lecturer Susan Buck and psychology scholar Nicole Noll, the group launched informally in April, and is already building traction alongside and with local groups like Geek Girl Dinners and TechGirlz.

Susan Buck

Buck teaches a web development course in Penn’s fine arts program, and has a background in multimedia arts and science, including a masters from New York University’s interactive telecommunications program. She also works full-time at Photojojo.com, a unique photography gadget shopping website based in San Francisco.

“I’ve been at this for a while, interacting with mostly men in the field. I often have the experience where I get an e-mail from someone, and they assume I’m not the developer on the project. They often ask me to pass the message on to the developer,” she says, noting the disparity between men and women in the technology field.

What gave Buck the edge to get into an industry lacking women?

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Girl Geek Dinner: Philadelphia chapter kicks off during Philly Tech Week

Girl Geek Dinner Philadelphia chapter kickoff during Philly Tech Week.

More than 30 self-proclaimed “geek” women met up at Triumph Brewing Company in Old City on Tuesday, April 26 to kick off Philadelphia’s Girl Geek Dinner chapter during the first ever Philly Tech Week.

The event started at 6:30 p.m. with the opportunity for attendees to network and enjoy drinks from the cash bar. At 7, chapter organizer Tristin Hightower welcomed the group and gave a brief introduction to the overarching organization, explaining why she started the chapter and her goals for it.

Maggie Avener of the Prometheus Radio Project spoke about demystifying technical topics to make them accessible to less geeky audiences, emphasizing techniques borrowed from popular education. She covered tips on audience-appropriate advertising for beginner technical trainings, assessing and acknowledging what participants already know, designing trainings that reach people with varying learning styles and pushing people beyond their comfort zones while maintaining a feeling of safety. Click to see slides from Maggie’s presentation here [PDF].

Hightower closed out the speaking portion of the evening by thanking everyone for attending and answering questions about where the group could go from there. Attendees ate dinner and mingled until about 9pm.

Pictures from the event can be found on Flickr and Facebook.

Up next for Girl Geek Dinners Philadelphia will be a May Happy Hour welcoming to all. To stay connected with upcoming events or activities, follow @GGDPHL on Twitter, like them on Facebook or join the GGD PHL
announcement mailing list. Visit www.ggdphl.com for more information.

‘Top Secret Rosies’ documentary tells story of women computers in WWII

Doris Blumberg Polsky used to be a computer.

She was 18 years old and graduating with her twin sister Shirley from Girls’ High in May 1942. They were both bright and studious and looking for a next step, so naturally their principal suggested they join a secret ballistics research lab then forming at the University of Pennsylvania.

Called ‘human computers,’ the hundreds of women across the country who were tasked with complex ballistics mathematics — at ages as early as 18 — are part of another of the often forgotten stories of women affecting the World War II outcome for the United States. In this case, with math and science and technology in West Philadelphia.

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A male dominated field? One woman’s take

This story is completed in partnership with Temple University’s journalism capstone class Philadelphia Neighborhoods. Students Tracy Galloway and Maria Zankey will cover technology issues through December.

Nancy Massey says she’s from “the DOS-based world.”  She says that in the 1980s, when the Disk Operating System was still widely used, working in technology was “so much simpler” in comparison to the work she’s used to doing now.

But a little complexity has never stopped her.

“I love a mystery, and I love a challenge,” Massey says. “Even today, [working in technology] is like solving a mystery, a puzzle.”

Massey, who currently works as a Web consultant for her namesake business, MasseyNet.com, has been working for more than 30 years in Philadelphia’s technology industry – a field largely dominated by men.

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Regional women-in-business report, annual award show success, room for growth

Women-led emerging growth companies in the Philadelphia region raise on average more than $10 million per company — called “significant outside capital” — according to a report released last week by WIN, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA and the Wharton Small Business Development Center.

The May 7th reception, where the report was discussed at BFTP’s offices in the Innovation Center of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, came along with other news for Pennsylvania women in business.

Gov. Ed Rendell saluted the honorees of the state’s 14th annual “Best 50 Women in Business” list, at a Harrisburg reception held Monday.

“Pennsylvania applauds the vital contributions that women entrepreneurs and leaders make to their communities and to the economic development of our state,” Fast Eddie said.

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