Velocity Europe: Google EMEA Women in Tech Conference Initiative

We all know about the problems women can sometimes face in technology so I’d like to focus on something much more positive. Technology is a changing industry, evidenced by high-profile women such as Marissa Mayer at Yahoo and Julie Larson-Green at Microsoft. Not only that, there are also the innovative and inspiring female techies, coders and programmers I meet on my conference trail – people like Anna Ravenscroft, who won this year’s Frank Wilson Memorial Award, Lorna Jane Mitchell, author of ‘PHP Web Services’ (and a few Josetteorama blog posts!), and Elizabeth Mattijsen, Perl 6 extraordinaire. Whilst we have a long way to go yet, the technology industry is diversifying and, in my opinion, is all the better for it.

Google is getting behind this, and have launched Women in Tech Conference and Travel Grants scheme. The initiative will encourage women to attend technical conferences across Europe, and they’ll be offering free registration for Velocity Europe in London, as well as up to €1000 toward travel and accommodation costs for female computer scientists. The event will take place on the 13^th-15^th, and will be the best place on the planet for web ops and performance professionals to learn from each other, exchange ideas with experts, and share best practices and lessons learned.

Velocity started six years ago in America, and is now one of the most important and successful web ops, web performance and dev ops events around. It’s grown to be an international organisation, with events happening in New York, Santa Clara, London and Beijing, and reaches a much wider and diverse range of people than ever before. Therefore Google’s Women in Tech Conference and Travel Grants, seems so in-line with the very ethos of Velocity, offering a chance for people to attend who may not have had the chance to otherwise.

To find out whether you’re legible for Google’s Women in Tech initiative, visit this page. The deadline for applications is 6^th October. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!