Duchess

We’ve applied for a Duchess BOF at Devoxx 2010. Come join us so we can meet each other and find out what has been going on in the Duchess community and how you can get involved.

Register for the biggest JUG-powered Java Conference in Europe:

On December 10, 2008, Linda and I did a BOF at Devoxx. BOF came from the phrase Birds of a feather flock together. BOFs are perfect for gathering a group of people who care about a certain topic. At our BOF, about 30 women and a few guys gathered to hear about Duchess and to discuss the issues around women in IT. Due to the large volume of research that I wanted to share, we only had a short time for discussion. I would like to recap what we had talked about and perhaps continue the discussion here online. If we were to ever do this in the same format, I would like to keep the talk short to leave more time for discussion, and have a organized meet-up for dinner and drinks where we can continue the discussions in a more informal setting.

Introducing Duchess
First, Linda talked about how we started Duchess and why we, as female Java developers ourselves, would like to see more women as colleagues. As introduction, she told that Duchess is a community of female Java developers with over 100 members world-wide, created to support and promote women in the Java industry. We provide a platform for professional and social networking that allows our members to connect with each other. Our short term goals included organizing social outings, technical sessions, study groups, and discounts for events and courses. After coming back from Devoxx, we finally became a foundation, so we can better arrange our activities for our members. Our long term goals include establishing local branches world-wide, starting outreach programs to reach other women and girls and get them to become passionate about IT. We also need to reach out to existing organizations that promote women in IT to possibly collaborate with them on our similar goals. Here at Duchess, our policy is to make visible the successes and challenges involving women in IT. Hopefully, through our collective passion and effort, we can help to change the image of IT into a great career choice for women.

Encouraging Girls
Someone (please let us know who you are) mentioned the role of parents in showing girls the choices they have by not limiting them. From a US-based education website, I found some practical advice for encouraging girls in maths and sciences. This includes:

• Ability is Expandable – Teach students that the brain grows when they practice and learn new material.
• Prescriptive Feedback – Provide prescriptive, informational feedback on strategies and effort.
• Female Role Models – Show students female role models to counter gender stereotypes.
• Sparking Curiosity – Spark initial curiosity and foster long-term interest in math and science.
• Teaching Spatial Skills – Teach students spatial skills such as how to visualize and manipulate forms and shapes.

As far as I’m concerned, these ideas also apply to software development. Ability is definitely expandable as long as people are curious and willing to learn. Feedback is an essential part of modern development methodologies and are instrumental in motivating people. Female role models show us what is possible in our careers. The ability to think abstractly while being able to produce concrete results is essential to software development.

Women with Passion for IT
Next, a professor who teaches programming in Estonia (again please let us know who you are) mentioned that in her class, the girls are less passionate about programming than the boys and therefore, they are not as good as boys. Perhaps the question here is: Why are they not passionate about IT? This means to me to be a case of self-fulfilling prophecy. If they think they’re not as good, then they’ll be not as good. Although girls on average perform better than boys in math classes at all levels, girls are more likely to feel less confident about their answers on tests and often express doubt about their performance. So, it’s perception issue – self-perception, as well as perception of parents and teachers. Furthermore, stereotypes (even subconscious ones) have a great affect on performance. When girls were told before a test that boys were better in math, their test scores suffered. So, in my humble opinion, confidence is the key to passionate learning because confidence allows one to try new things and this can come from risking and failing in a safe environment. With positive feedback leading to a sense of accomplishment, passion can be built and nurtured.

I did get the feeling that not everyone who had something to say had a chance to speak at the BOF. So, please feel free to comment.

• Part 1: Challenges for Women Entering and Pursuing a Career in IT
• Part 2: Reasons Why More Women Should be in IT
• Part 3: Strategies to Tackle the Issues

• Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology
• The Business Case for Gender Diversity
• The State of Women and Technology Fields Around the World
• Where are the Women in Information Technology?
• Why More Women Should Consider a Career in Computer Programming
• Women wanted in Europe’s ICT industry
• Promoting ICT Among Young Women in Europe
• Women Employed in Science and Technology
• Women Matter: Gender Diversity, a Corporate Performance Driver
• Women holding purse strings
• Best Buy gets in touch with its feminine side
• Men Write Code From Mars, Women Write More Helpful Code From Venus

As I mentioned in my own blog-post I’am the lucky one who won the free devoxx tickets, Yay! I also wrote in the same post:

I’am a bit behind on the recap though

I made lots of notes and decided to write some posts about the most interesting session I attended, this will include:
XP loops, Seam in Action, Test driven development and PHP on Java.

At University day 1, I attended the session: Scrum in Practice by Chery Sylvain and Yves Hanoulle.
This session was divided in two parts, XP Loops and SCRUM.

You can read my recap about XP Loops here.

Hello Duchesses,

This 4rd Duchess newsletter is to announce our upcoming events, general announcements and recap our past events.

Table of Contents

• Event: Duchess dinner after J-Fall – November 12, 2008
• Event: Duchess Talk at Devoxx – December 10, 2008
• Announcement: One free Devoxx pass (university + conference) – December 8-12, 2008
• Event: Introduction to Agile by Michael Franken (AgileHolland) – January 20, 2008
• Announcement: Participation Fee
• Announcement: One Male Guest
• Recap: Spring event by Arjen Poutsma (SpringSource)
• Recap: Groovy & Grails event by Maarten Hoppen (VX Company)
• Announcement: Photos on Flickr

(more…)

Clara and Linda will give a presentation at Devoxx in Antwerp about Duchess and the issues involving women in IT. Last time we did this at the Benelux jBoss meeting, it turned into a nice discussion. So if you’re going to Devoxx, please drop by.

More info on the Devoxx site at http://devoxx.com/display/JV08/BOF+Day+3.

http://www.javoxx.org/display/JV08/Home

JavaPolis? Javoxx? Devoxx! Does it need any more explanation? It’s the largest Java Convention in Europe. Two days of university sessions, three days of conference. The biggest hotshots of the community come to either talk or just sniff around. And you can be there as well.

Duchess (i.e. Clara and Linda) will probably give a BOF there.