Where Are They?

Photograph: Websummit.net. Montage: Michael Ruane, Irish Times Premedia

It’s that time of the year again Web…Tastic Summit time. Over 10,000 people are estimated to walk through the doors to network, hear their tech idols speak, discover new start ups, pitch to investors and so much more. And this incredible event is here in Dublin on the 30th and 31st of October 2013. Right on DigiWomen’s doorstep. How exciting is that.

Women Speakers in 2013

Alas, the women in tech debate continues. Apparently only 1 in 8 speakers at this years Web Summit are women. Out of 200 speakers just 26 are females. Fiona McCann wrote an interesting piece about it in the Irish Times last Friday where event organisers said they “ultimately struggled to find qualified women to shift the balance” .

Daire Hickey one of the founders of the Web Summit was on BBC Radio discussing this very issue and that it is not something they desire or want for their events. You can hear the full radio interview here.

To be fair to the Web Summit organisers I know they are working at changing the gender balance at their events. They partnered with DigiWomen to host a very successful female focused Pub Summit in June of this year. And another one, on a smaller scale, is happening this Thursday.

The Web Summit are also part of the ongoing DigiWomen Roundtable discussions to look at ways of improving the gender balance in the tech and digital industry in Ireland. A draft action plan has been proposed and more details will follow shortly about what will be done in 2014.

It is worth noting that since this blog post It’s not Just Toys for Boys was written in February 2010 by Helen Shaw of Athena Media there has been an improvement from no females to 26 females !

Andreea Wade

And finally DigiWomen would like to give a BIG shout out to Andreea Wade founder of AskATon.com – a female friendly event series focused on tech and digital who will be speaking at the Web Summit.

We wish you all the best Andreea!  GO ANDREEAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!