The fairer sex is clearly superior in very many aspects of life, though if asked, no many people are likely to say tech is one of them. The reality of things is that technology has moved forward, and so have the women in this field. Google wants to change this mindset and prove than women are just as skilled writing programs as any man out there. As such, Google Developer’s Group (GDG) Philippines joined the worldwide celebration of Women’s Day by taking part in the first DevFest for Women.
The , which was held The GDG DevFestW is a worldwide effort held in 19 cities in 13 countries, and included talks on game development, technical sessions on Android development, programming language Python, and the Google App engine. It also had non-technical sessions on IT careers, Google Analytics and basic HTML 5.
Specific to DevFestW was a roster of all-female organizers and speakers. Among the speakers were Ria Lu, president and CEO of advergames developer Komikasi Games and Entertainment Inc.; Charo Nuguid, an IT consultant, developer, trainer and founder of the Philippine Android Community; and Madiha Mudin, Google software engineer working on AdWords Frontend. Mudin is also part of “Women @ Google” group which aims to grow the number of women working on technology. Locally, DevFestW was organized in partnership with Globe Labs.
“With the right skills and knowledge, anybody is capable of innovation in this industry,” said Chelle Gray, Google Developers Group Program Associate for Southeast Asia. “We try to impart both through the DevFests, but this event is more special because we emphasize the opportunity for women to excel as developers.”