Dance Hack Day is a global celebration of technology and the choreographic arts. Participating in this year’s Amsterdam sister site event with an evolution of my light-up motion-responsive Arduino costume was a joy and a privilege. My biggest learning from the weekend is that with the right kind of supportive and open environment, even someone … Continue reading
Tag Archives: women in technology
A moment of gratitude and a call for action
As we come to the end of year that has been full of unanticipated challenges, I’m drawn to reflect on the things I’m truly grateful for. One of those things is Ada’s List, a group which supports women in technology (and science, engineering and maths) by offering an exchange of opportunities, space to talk about … Continue reading
Adventures in coding-land
I dreamed about a canvas painted in thick smears of black, spread so thickly the strokes seemed to move, roiling over and around each other giving depth and heft to the obscurity. Smudges of color which never quite resolved into shapes blossomed and faded on the surface, giving the impression of sinister figures shrouded in … Continue reading
International Women’s Day: The Rest is Just Syntax
Last week I was invited to observe a women in technology celebration day for young teenagers who are starting to look at the kinds of higher educational paths they want to pursue. The highlight of the day for me was meeting Genevieve Smith-Nunes, an educator who uses arts to convey computer science concepts–and computer science … Continue reading
Ada’s List Member Survey
For a while now I’ve belonged to a London-focused Women In Technology group called Ada’s List. It’s a fantastic way to find out about events and training, but more importantly, the frank conversations which form part of the group’s ethos really help me to feel more confident in my career. Even when I’m not actively … Continue reading
Scaling Twitter
On Thursday evening I went to an event at Twitter hosted by their Women in Engineering group featuring a series of lightning talks on the challenges of designing technologies that scale. As ever, I’ve put together a Storify of the event here. Tom Woolway, one of Twitter’s engineering managers, also collated a tweet collection summarising … Continue reading
Data for Good: DataKind’s Data Dive, 6-8 June 2014
This weekend I volunteered for my first Data Dive, DataKind UK’s initiative to connect data scientists with charities and social organisations to help them tackle some of their biggest challenges. This month’s Data Dive focused on Buttle UK, the Access Project, Shooting Star Chase and Citizens Advice Bureau, looking at a range of issues from … Continue reading
Caitiewrites at Mozfest 2013: a Storify Journey
I was lucky enough to go to Mozilla Festival for the first time over the weekend. I experimented with Storify for the first time also, capturing my notes and photos for the festival here. Here’s a sample of what you can find on my Storify of Mozilla Festival 2013! Much more detail over there, organized … Continue reading
Blog for Little Miss Geek: Humanities Students Make Great Geeks
The lovely folks over at Little Miss Geek, who run an initiative designed to inspire more women and girls to get into technical careers, allowed me to write a post for them on why humanities students make great geeks. Digital technology pervades all aspects of our lives and careers, a trend that looks like it’s … Continue reading
The Data Dance: Women in Technology, and Information Visualisation
In a move that is known technically as Continuous Professional Development, but which I prefer to call Learning About Some New Stuff I Find Quite Interesting, I recently went on a QlikView Developer course. This is to help me move beyond building pretty (and pretty useful) little objects in the user interface which people see … Continue reading
In a Merry Hour: Caitlin E McDonald 