There’s a lot going on in the tech world. I can’t open a paper or read my emails without coming across some new development each day. Behind these developments are men and women working to build new systems and challenge our current ways of thinking. I want to highlight three millennial women who are doing even more to empower other women in their fields.
Isis Wenger
Inadvertently thrust into the spotlight last month when an advertising campaign recruiting engineers for OneLogin in San Francisco went live and then received sexist backlash from the public, Isis Wenger has turned what could have been just another stab at women in tech into a positive campaign. Wenger’s #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag took off from its first tweet. She created a Twitter page for the campaign, and is hosting #ILookLikeAnEngineer events and calling for supporters to contact her for collaborative efforts. In her original response to people’s comments, Wenger wrote, “I didn’t want or ask for any of this attention, but if I can use this to put a spotlight on gender issues in tech I consider that to be at least one win.” Wenger plans to continue building this movement and advocating for gender equality in engineering.
Corinne Warnshuis
The Executive Director of Girl Develop It, Corinne Warnshuis is empowering women to take on the tech world. I had the pleasure of meeting Warnshuis earlier this year at a GDI event in Chicago and she is truly a strong advocate and great leader for this organization. Community focused, Warnshuis believes that women are wholly capable of accomplishing everything. Through her work with GDI, she strives to provide platforms and meetup groups across the country to support women in their learning. She sees the education of women on how to code as a way to promote involvement in the development of open source projects, which serves only to be an asset to the overall development of new an improving programs.
Angie Chang
A long-time advocate of getting women into tech, Angie Chang currently serves as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Hackbright Academy, which offers a 10-week fulltime software development training program for women. Seeing the great disparity of gender representation in the tech world, Chang took action and cofounded Women 2.0 in 2006 with a mission to bring more women into the tech industry as leaders, founders, and investors. Women 2.0 currently provides arenas for women in tech to learn, network, develop ideas, and pitch to investors. Chang’s work with both organizations, as well as her Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, strives to show women that tech and other traditionally male fields are completely accessible to women, too.
