A few weeks ago, Lillian Angel of Redhat invited us to speak on the topic of Women in IT in the Java room at FOSDEM 2008.

As a result, Linda and I gave a short presentation about Duchess and the issues concerning women in IT today.

We were joined by about 12 women, with about 50 in all in the room. We were rather well received by people who cared about this. There were managers who would like to hire more women and long-time techies who would like to see more women enter the field. The women who were there have forged a presence in the field and shown what is possible for others. We spoke about communication skills, diversity in the team, and economic reasons for the small number of women in IT today. At the end, we engaged in a lively discussion about what can be done to get more women in IT and concluded that it will be hard work, but raising awareness is the first step

Here is the abstract.

Clara