We are still seeing significantly less women than men on the speaker circuits in the technology industry. Whilst many conference organizers aren’t too worried about this, there are a few who are looking to make change happen in this area. Andy Budd of Clearleft is one of these. He’s been working with developers for years and sees this issue every year when he organizes the d.Construct conference. He’s marketed events to women in the industry through networks like Girl Geek Dinners, through standard developer channels and has put out calls for speakers many times before finalising the events, but still struggles to find female speakers.
So after a lot of thought Andy has decided to try and help break down some of the barriers that may dissuade women from speaking at his or other events by inviting anyone who would like to speak at his conferences or other conferences to a free one day training course on conference speaking. He is hoping that he gets lots of interest in this from both men and women who want to speak at conferences but would like some training to ensure they don’t make a fool of themselves.
I hope other conferences around the world will follow Andy’s lead and consider doing the same in a bid to open up the speaker circuits to a wider range of great speakers!
Get your video submissions in if you are up for a bit of free speaker training!
About Sarah Lamb
Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.
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