The underrepresentation of women in the IT industry is a well-documented problem. Many people would like to help address this problem, but feel paralyzed and nervous. Where and how do we start? Women and others marginalized in IT often describe their experience in our industry as “death by 1000 paper cuts”. These biases are built into our hiring systems, our daily interactions with colleagues, and people of all genders (often unconsciously) participate in them daily. How can we begin to tackle this huge problem in our everyday workplaces?

If we want more great brains in our industry, a first step is to become more aware of the more subtle biases that go on in the workplace every day, even in the most well-intentioned organizations, and to start talking about them more openly. Join us for a panel presentation, followed by a discussion, led by a team of women working in tech. People of all backgrounds, genders, experience levels, and technical knowledge are invited to attend and share experiences. Bring open ears, hearts, minds; questions and answers; and stories of your own. We hope you will leave the session feeling more aware, connected, supported, and inspired to help make change in your own workplace.

This session will kick off with a presentation on recent research on subtle, implicit bias by Nicole Noll, a social psychologist teaching at Harvard and co-founder of the Women's Coding Collective, followed by a panel discussion led by Julia Rowinski, human resources director at Last Call Media; Kelly McCabe, developer at Last Call Media; Johanna Bates, front-end developer, Drupalist, and nonprofit tech strategist with DevCollaborative; and designer and front-end developer Victoria Chapman from Common Media.