"tech diversity" entries

Signals from the 2015 O’Reilly Velocity Conference in New York

Key insights from DevOps, Web operations, and performance.

People from across the Web operations and performance worlds are coming together this week for the 2015 O’Reilly Velocity Conference in New York. Below, we’ve assembled notable keynotes, interviews, and insights from the event.

Diversity and bias

Bryan Liles, who works on strategic initiatives for DigitalOcean, gave a great thought-provoking talk on bias and diversity. “If your company is creating a diversity plan and you’ve actually gone and counted people,” Liles said, “you’ve already lost.”

Read more…

Closing the gender gap in tech

Stories from women who are making a big impact on the field of big data.

The gender gap in tech is not news, but here’s what is: it’s shrinking. In O’Reilly’s latest report — Women in Data: Cutting-Edge Practitioners and Their Views on Critical Skills, Background, and Education — female data practitioners discuss their work, their achievements, and the attitudes that have propelled them forward to career success.

Through a series of 15 interviews with women across the data field, we’ve uncovered stories we think you’ll find and both interesting and inspiring. The interviews explore:

  • Interviewees’ views about opportunities for women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
  • Benefits of the data field as a career choice for women
  • The changing attitudes of Millennials toward women working in data
  • Remedies for continuing to close the gender gap in tech

Our findings reveal an important consensus among the women we interviewed — the role of female mentors and role models working in STEM is extremely important for opening up the pathway for more women to enter these fields. In fact, the impact that mentors have had on our interviewees has inspired many of them to serve as mentors to other female colleagues, and younger generations of girls, today. Read more…