Presenting the Women In Tech Speaker Series
Published on Mar 7, 2017 by Kyla Williams , Derek Eder
Smart Chicago Collaboarative and Chi Hack Night present: the Women In Tech Speaker Series
Smart Chicago Collaborative and Chi Hack Night have teamed up to create a speaking series in celebration of Women’s History Month in an effort to elevate the talented, diverse women in civic-driven technology across Chicago.
Too often in the tech space we hear about what people do or what product they have made and less about their personal narratives. In this series, we encourage our speakers to share their stories as a transformative learning and inspirational opportunity.
Additionally, we acknowledge the lack of diversity in the civic tech community and believe that becoming more community-based with easier opportunities for engagement and gaining experience will spurn interest in the field and potentially serve as an economic solution to fill technology vacancies in Chicago.
This partnership is especially timely considering Smart Chicago is currently an all women team fighting the good fight on behalf of civic technology and engagement and Chi Hack Night has set a priority area of focus on diversifying its thriving developer community.
The Women in Tech Speakers Series will coincide with the four weekly Chi Hack Night events that occur on Tuesdays at Braintree in Merchandise Mart for the month of March.
Additionally, two community events will be held on Wednesday, March 29th in Homan Square and Thursday March 30th at the DuSable Museum.
It’s important to ensure we are not just highlighting women in technology and their respective stories, but also their roles within the field. Further, if we are going to influence a paradigm shift and draw more interest into the field, demystifying roles and types of opportunities is necessary. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue this partnership and related activities on an ongoing basis, as this is important work.
Event #1 - March 7th, 6pm
The Speaker Series kicks off tonight March 7th with special guest Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
Braintree
222 W Merchandise Mart Plz
8th Floor
Chicago, IL 60654
Event #2 - March 14th, 6pm
Next week will feature Sandee Kastrul, president and co-founder of i.c.stars, an innovative nonprofit leadership and technology training program founded in 1999 to prepare inner-city adults for technology careers and community leadership.
Braintree
222 W Merchandise Mart Plz
8th Floor
Chicago, IL 60654
Event #3 - March 21st, 6pm
Our third event will feature Melissa Pierce, Director of “Born with Curiosity: The Story of Grace Murray Hopper”, an independent documentary about Grace Hopper, who in 1944, was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language.
Braintree
222 W Merchandise Mart Plz
8th Floor
Chicago, IL 60654
Event #4 - March 28th
On Tuesday, March 28th we will welcome Robin Robinson, special advisor on community affairs at the Chicago Police Department. Robin will discuss the role she has taken on and the work needed to rebuild trust between the Chicago Police Department and the communities it serves.
Braintree
222 W Merchandise Mart Plz
8th Floor
Chicago, IL 60654
Event #5 - Creators & Founders: Women in Civic Tech
Wednesday, March 29th we will welcome a panel of creators and founders, with speakers Allyson Scrutchens of Forward Planning and Dima Elissa of VisMed-3D.
Homan Square Community Center
3517 W. Arthington Street
Chicago, IL 60624
Event #6 - Amplifiers of Community Voice: Women in Civic Tech
Thursday March 30th we will welcome a panel of amplifiers of community voice with speakers Andrea Hart of City Bureau, Aviva Rosman of Ballot Ready, and Tiana Epps-Johnson of Center for Tech and Civic Life.
DuSable Museum-Auditorium
740 East 56th Place
Chicago, IL 60637
We hope you’ll join us in celebrating Women’s History Month and Chicago’s unique and amazing civic technology community. Here’s to Women’s History Month and fruitful partnerships!
Correction March 8, 2017: 4pm The 250th Chi Hack Night will be held on April 18th, not March 28th.
About the authors
Kyla Williams
Kyla Williams is the Interim Executive Director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative.
Derek Eder
Derek is an entrepreneur, developer and one of the leaders of the civic technology community in Chicago. He is a co-founder and partner at DataMade — a company that tells stories and builds tools with data — and is the lead organizer for Chi Hack Night.