Women in IT (Aug 3). Online freedom of speech (Aug 5th)

[Sacha Chua]

Hello, everyone!

Colin McGregor <colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> writes:
> sample. So beyond the poor social skills idea, to toss
> another idea out, does it help to be born outside
> Canada to become a woman techie?

I'd say this suggests the idea that you have to be a pretty good and
pretty lucky techie to travel. There are a *lot* of women in
technology who don't get that opportunity.

If anything, it's probably harder for foreign-born IT professionals to
make it here, and _particularly_ hard for women. You think women in
technology have to deal with bias and stereotype? I get compliments on
my English all the time. I have so far managed to resist the urge to
tell people I got perfect scores on the verbal portions of my GRE and
other standardized tests. If people are getting hung up on language,
how are they going to trust my technical skills? ;)

Then there's the entire problem of networking. It's much harder for
people from elsewhere to speak up or to even know where to find
interesting people and opportunities.

That said, though, the organizing meeting for this Social Tech Brewing
event was pretty interesting. Most people there could be considered
part of visible minorities.

We wanted to run a separate session aimed at helping foreign-born IT
professionals integrate into Canadian society, but that didn't work
out this month. Still, the need is there.

Best regards,

Sacha
aforementioned Philippine-born UofT grad. student

-- 
Sacha Chua <sacha-bc55NVWLdWuB+jHODAdFcQ at public.gmane.org> - http://sachachua.com
Storyteller, technology evangelist, geekette
Interested in social computing in the enterprise
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