Girls In Tech

Midwestern developers are all abuzz this week in anticipation of the Heartland Developers Conference, an event for building professional skills and cultivating community relationships, taking place Oct. 15-16 in Omaha. With 68 sessions and four development categories packed into two days, HDC is the place to be for software designers, developers, engineers, analysts, architects…you get the picture.

For the first time since the conference began in 2004, Girls in Tech will have a presence at the event to share our mission, experience and passion. We’re excited about networking with fellow techies, but we’re also looking forward to some high quality speakers and sessions. The first day features keynotes by Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie and Adobe’s Kevin Hoyt. The next day is no shabbier, with keynotes by Neal Ford of ThoughtWorks  and Google’s Patrick Chanezon . Session topics range from iPhone dev and jQuery to alternative database technologies and Flex.

If you’ll be attending HDC, let us know at Omaha@GirlsInTech.net and be sure to stop by our booth. If not, follow the action on Twitter with the official event hashtag #HDC09. We’ll be sure to report back with a recap of the conference and its awesome evening events soon.

Tags: conference, Developers, Events, networking, Omaha
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This past weekend, I attended BarCamp Omaha. BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences, or “unconference” if you will. All content is provided by participants in a semi organized fashion. You show up, sign up for a session, and get a spot on the schedule.

BarCamp has its roots in open source technology. Omaha’s BarCamp has evolved into more than just a tech conference. Sessions were set up in three categories, creative, entrepreneur, and tech. There were talks on glass art making, intrepreneurship, start-up company culture, branding through blogs, Groovy and Java, Amazon SimpleDB, etc. I gave a talk on MySQL Performance Tuning. Admittedly, I was the only woman speaking in the tech track. Even though only 30% of the 200+ attendees were female, our input and involvement was definitely well received and appreciated by all attendees.

One of the things I really love about Omaha is our culture of support. We have so many amazing creatives and entrepreneurs that are happy to share their experiences and help others grow. BarCamp provides an awesome platform to do just that. We had such a great environment for sharing and collaboration. A couple of the speakers, Rob Jensen and Sara Davidson, had never met before the event but put together a session that garnered a lot of involvement and feedback from the audience. Joe Frost gave a presentation on his new start-up, tweet while you eat, and many of the audience members responded with feedback that basically said, “Cool, I really like this idea. How can I get involved and help your success?”

For me, that culture of support is what gets at the heart of Girls in Tech. As females involved in technology, we may not all spend our days sitting at our keyboards churning out code. We’re involved in all aspects from social media to support to back end development. Regardless of where our position falls, we’re all here for each other and out there to prove it’s not just a man’s world.

Tags: barcamp omaha
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Adriana Gascoigne with the Omaha Chapter Advisory Board.

The Omaha chapter officially launched last Friday with a launch event that coincided with Big Omaha, and the announcement of the chapter and the event were both huge successes! More than 200 people came out to show their interest in and support of bringing Girls in Tech to the Omaha area, sharing ideas and creativity through simple graffiti walls throughout the venue and good ol’ conversations. More than 30 women signed up to become members and so many more party-goers signed up to support GIT in other ways. GIT founder Adriana Gascoigne was in town as a featured speaker for Big Omaha and attended the launch in support of the new chapter.

The event wouldn’t have been as awesome and probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground at all without the help of the amazing GIT Omaha Advisory Board. So without further ado, meet the other ladies behind the launch of the Omaha chapter:

Erin Hawkins, a senior developer at Brightmix, is our events coordinator. She secured the venue, planned and ordered our food and beverages and worked with the launch party sponsors. Erin brings an attention to detail and a determination to get the job done to the advisory board and her position.

Megan Hunt, the mastermind behind Princess Lasertron, is our outreach/speakers coordinator. She made the graffiti wall installations accessible and relevant and brought a friendly, welcoming presence to the entrance of the event. Megan’s creativity and passion for education and involvement will be tremendous assets in planning and executing future GIT events.

Jaci Rebrovich, marketing manager at the AIM Institute, is our business coordinator. She managed our contact database and sponsorship documentation and despite feeling under the weather managed to welcome nearly each and every guest at the launch party. Jaci’s organizational skills and enthusiasm are a killer combination when it comes to getting anything done.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Omaha launch party, supported the chapter’s origination and expressed their interest in the development of the Omaha chapter. Keep an eye out for our first girls-only event soon, and check out photos from the event (special thanks to Andy Peters for his excellent photography!).

Tags: designer, Developer, Engineer, event, girls in tech, KT McBratney, launch, New chapter, Omaha, women in tech
Posted in Omaha | 2 Comments »